Preamble

The House met at Ten o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

NURSERIES AND CHILD-MINDERS REGULATION ACT 1948 (AMENDMENT)

10.4 a.m.

Miss Joan Lestor: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to alleviate abuses in the care of children and to amend the provisions of the Nurseries and Child-Minders Regulation Act 1948.
The purpose of this Bill is to draw attention to the problems involved in the care of young children and to suggest one or two amendments to the Nurseries and Child-Minders Regulation Act, 1948, which may help to assist in this very depressing and worrying situation. The ultimate object of any solution to the problems of the under-fives is obviously an urgent expansion of the day nursery service, particularly in areas which could be described as deprived.
I think, too, that the country has to make up its mind about its attitude to working mothers. It is no use encouraging mothers of young children to go back to work or putting them in an economic position where they have to go to work and not providing facilities whereby they can get their young children minded.
Whether one approves of it or not, it is obvious that more and more mothers of young children are going out to work and being forced to use all sorts of unsatisfactory services because we do not provide facilities at local authority level whereby children may be looked after.
At the moment, there are over 4½ million children under five. In 1955, there were just under 4 million, and it will be seen that the increase has been roughly 20 per cent. Against that figure, since 1948, local authority day nurseries have declined from 910 looking after 43,000 children, until 1965, when there were 448 looking after just over 21,000 children.
To the extent that the day nursery facilities provided by local authorities have declined, the provision for childminding by private nurseries has increased. In fact, the figures are quite alarming. In 1949, there were 250 private nurseries looking after just under 7,000 children, whereas in 1965, there were 2,200 private nurseries looking after 55,000 children. In child minding, the same situation has arisen. More and more children are going into the private sector of the child-minding service, be it a day nursery or a woman registered as a child-minder, because facilities for looking after children in the public sector do not exist.
With this lack of provision, what we have seen, particularly in our larger industrial areas such as London, Birmingham and Liverpool, is a mushrooming in the service provided by the unregistered child-minder, and it is on that that I want to focus most attention in the few minutes at my disposal.
Although it is an offence for any woman to look after children unless she is registered with the local authority, the means of ensuring that registration takes place are so loose and ineffective that more and more women are looking after children, the numbers of which we can only guess, without local authorities having knowledge of it or having any contact with the persons concerned through their public health departments. It might be said that in some areas it is becoming almost like the baby-farming which occurred in the Victorian era.
One of the biggest avenues for the unregistered child-minder to get children is through the advertisement boards displayed outside local shops and through local newspapers. If one cares to look round, one can see advertisements asking for children to be minded or offering to look after children. One way in which something might be done about registration is to make it illegal for a newsagent or newspaper to accept an advertisement for child-minding unless the person placing the advertisement has a certificate of registration issued by the local authority. I realise that this will not close the gap completely because much of the touting for children which goes on is done through neighbours by word of mouth, but it would do something to bring to the attention of people who may


be ignorant of the law that they have to register with the health authority before they look after children.
One of the dangers of interfering with what one might call the private sector of child-minding is that unless we make adequate provision through the local authority this practice will go on unchecked because women will always find somebody to look after their children, and we will, as it were, push unregistered child-minders underground. I want to give mothers every facility to use the advice and help available from the local authority through the health visitor and through the medical officer of health.
One of the most alarming facts which has emerged from recent reports and surveys on child-minders is the total ignorance of many of the people doing this service of the needs of the children under their care. They have no idea of the physical conditions under which the children should be looked after, nor any knowledge about diets and using the proper means of heating. We have recently heard of a number of tragedies resulting from the use of unsafe oil heaters when a large number of children are gathered together. To prevent further tragedies of this nature we must do all that we can to provide facilities for people engaged in this work to take advantage of the advice and guidance which they can receive from a local authority.
The other aspect of this matter is the confusion which exists between the educational sphere of nursery schools, and the health responsibility of day nurseries. Local authority day nurseries are registered under the Health Act, nursery schools are registered under the Education Act, and yet a person looking after anything from 10 to 20 children is registered under the Nursery and Child-Minders' Act, if she wishes, although she may be conducting what is really an educational establishment because she has in her charge a large number of children who must constitute some sort of nursery class.
I suggest that the Department of Education and Science and the Ministry of Health should consider having a joint responsibility for all children over the age of three and under the age of five, so that rather than have one group under education and one under health, all

groups of children over three would be given at least some recognition by the education authority, and children under three would be the complete responsibility of the health authority.
I think that that is important, because it is obvious that in the foreseeable future there will not be adequate provision for the under-fives either by means of a day nursery service, or a nursery school service, and as the private sector of provision for the under-fives increases by play groups, kindergartens, and so on, it is important that these children who are in what ought to be educational establishments are given the advantage of receiving guidance from and inspection by the education authorities otherwise we shall tend to develop two classes of young children, some having the advantage of education, while others are deprived of it, merely because they are registered under a different Act.
The comments made during the last two years by various medical officers of health, and the knowledge which health visitors have gained about the whole problem of the under-fives and working mothers add tremendous weight to my plea for a public inquiry. We do not know why women put their children with unregistered child minders, rather than with registered ones. We do not know enough about the conditions under which these children are looked after, but we do know that the under-fives, and particularly those over whom the local authority has no control, are open to wide abuse. We are subjecting many of our young children to physical and mental dangers. We ought therefore to have a public inquiry so that we can make recommendations about the best way of dealing with this problem.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Miss Lestor, Dr. David Kerr, Mr. Carmichael, Mr. Whitaker, Mr. Ellis, Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody, and Mr. Winnick.

NURSERIES AND CHILD-MINDERS REGULATION ACT 1948 (AMENDMENT)

Bill to alleviate abuses in the care of children and to amend the provisions of the Nurseries and Child-Minders Regulation Act, 1948, presented accordingly and read the First time: to be read a Second time upon Friday and to be printed. [Bill 240.]

Orders of the Day — ROYAL ASSENT BILL [Lords]

Considered in Committee.

[Sir ERIC FLETCHER in the Chair]

Clause 1—(SIGNIFICATION OF ROYAL ASSENT.)

10.16 a.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: I beg to move Amendment No. 2, in page 1, line 8, to leave out paragraph (a).
The purpose of the Amendment is to remove from the Bill the occasions on which we meet together with the House of Lords to hear the Royal Assent to a Bill. I agree with the main purpose of the Bill, which is to reduce to the minimum the number of occasions on which Black Rod is accustomed to come here to ask the House of Commons to go to the House of Lords to hear the Royal Assent. I congratulate the Government on having introduced the Bill and this innovation in our procedure, which is of course very acceptable to hon. Members, but I should like to remove from the Bill the provision by which this House goes to the House of Lords at all.
I do not want this ceremony to take place even at the end of a Session, or on very rare occasions. The only time I want to go to the House of Lords is for its burial service or cremation. I do not agree that even on the rare occasions provided for in the Bill we should go to the other place. There is nothing very dignified in hon. Members of this House trailing off to the House of Lords to hear the Royal Assent given in the way that it has been on innumerable occasions. Under this new procedure the Lord Chancellor will read the Royal Assent in another place, and Mr. Speaker will read it in this House. I think that it should be left at that.
I have watched the ceremony of a Royal Assent from a seat in the Distinguished Visitors Gallery. I have seen Mr. Speaker, accompanied by hon. Members of this House, arrive in the other place. They do not seem to be given a cordial welcome. Nobody asks them to sit down. Nobody says "Good morning, comrades", or "Good afternoon, comrades". Hon. Members are treated as

though they are very common canaille who have come here to do as they are told. This might have been true during the time of Henry VIII, when the Act which is to be repealed spelt the Commons with a small "c". That used to be the rule of the House of Commons. I remember a speech made by Lord Shawcross when he was on the Front Bench in the House of Commons, in which he said, "We are the masters now." When he said that he was referring not to the House of Commons but to the Labour Government. Now that he is in another place I hope that he does not think that that dictum still applies.
The time has come when the Procedure of the Royal Assent should be simple, as provided by the Bill. The last Royal Assent Bill was 400 years ago. We might as well now make the procedure rational and reasonable. It is not a dignified ceremony. It shows that the House of Commons is looked upon by the House of Lords as a collection of servile people. The ceremony gives the impression that the lord of the manor has called in his cooks and butlers. We do not agree with that. When we say, "We are the masters now," we mean the House of Commons. Now that the Government have taken this step towards terminating the ceremony we might as well make a good job of it.
I should have been much more optimistic about the Amendment being accepted if my hon and learned Friend's brother had been in his position. I am not his brother's keeper. Nevertheless, I suggest that having had an opportunity to reflect upon this reasonable Amendment, my hon. and learned Friend will feel able to announce its acceptance by the Government.

Mr. Antony Buck: Hon. Members on this side of the Committee would regard it as a great pity if the Amendment were accepted. It is surprising that so colourful a Member as the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) should want to deprive us of what is generally regarded as a significant, colourful and traditional ceremony. We doubt the constitutional propriety of the Amendment. It is obviously in order, or it would not have been called, but it should be remembered that on an occasion when a similar


Amendment was moved in another place a certain view was expressed by the Lord Chancellor.
I understand that the Bill does not limit the Royal Prerogative; in fact, so far as it does anything it extends it somewhat, by providing an additional way in which it may be signified to the House, but if the Amendment were accepted it would place a minor fetter on the Prerogative, by providing that the Queen would not be able to exercise it in a certain way.
The Government view of this type of Amendment was put on record in another place. There an Amendment was designed to provide that the ceremony should take place each Session, and the Lord Chancellor expressed doubts as to the constitutional propriety of the matter and asked whether the noble Lord who had moved the Amendment had sought Her Majesty's leave, and whether she had any objection to the Amendment. I imagine that if the hon. Member for South Ayrshire had sought Her Majesty's permission for his Amendment he would have told us. In the absence of any such assurance, the Lord Chancellor's words seem appropriate. He said that it would be somewhat irregular for an Amendment of this type to be passed without the Royal Assent having been obtained as a necessary prerequisite.
Apart from the point of constitutional proprietry, my hon. Friends and I take the view that it is not a bad thing to be reminded from time to time, in a somewhat graphic way, of some of the fundamentals of our constitutional position. I do not see the situation as does the hon. Member for South Ayrshire. In my view, our Parliamentary independence was hard-won, and it is not a bad thing that in these days we should continue from time to time to have a ceremony which illustrates this theme, by the way in which we treat with a certain degree of rudeness the emissary from the House of Lords in order to indicate that no one shall enter our Chamber without our leave and consent. A little ceremony to illustrate this is not a bad thing, and in my view it would be a pity if the old symbolism of the ceremony were done away with.
This ceremony indicates to the House of Lords that we are supreme, especially

in the case of money Bills, where they have to send their emissary to the Clerk of the House and only when we see fit does our Clerk hand over money Bills to the House of Lords.
We think that it is a good thing to retain ceremonies of this type. It should not be allowed to interfere with our business, and that is the purpose of the Bill, but it would be a great pity if what was described by the Government spokesman in another place as being an old and dignified ceremony should disappear. We hope that the Amendment will not be accepted.

The Solicitor-General (Sir Dingle Foot): On many occasions I have found myself in complete agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes). I remember when he and I moved together for an inquiry into the Suez affair—a suggestion that has always been resisted by hon. Members opposite. On another occasion, with my full support, he moved the nationalisation of The Times newspaper. I am sure that there will be many occasions in the future when he and I will be together, but this is an exception.
If the Amendment were passed in its present form —I appreciate that my hon. Friend has another Amendment on the Order Paper—only two methods would remain of signifying the Royal Assent—one by notification, as proposed in the Bill, and the other by the Sovereign in person. We could bring about that result, but it would mean that the ceremony which we have known for the last 400 years would disappear. I do not think that that is the wish of hon. Members on either side of the House.
I do not know how far my hon. Friend would go. Would he abolish all our ancient ceremonies? I shudder to think what the result would be. In Scotland there would be no Hogmanay and no Burns Night. Nobody again would propose "the immortal memory". No longer would anybody in Wales celebrate St. David's Day, with daffodils; in Cornwall we would no longer have the floral dance; in England there would be no pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, no Cup Final in May, no Derby in June, no fireworks on 5th November, no pantomime at Christmas, and no Aldermaston march at Easter.
We should miss these ancient ceremonies. We want to keep them—including the ceremony of the Royal Assent. I agree with the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck) on this point. We do not want the time of the House to be interrupted—that is the purpose of the Bill—but we want to retain the ceremony on two or three occasions in each Parliamentary Session.
I hope that we shall keep this ceremony. I always feel a certain sense of excitement when we slam the door in the face of the Queen's Messenger. I hope that we shall go on doing so and be reminded that the roots of the present lie deep in the past. Therefore, I resist the Amendment.

Amendment negatived.

10.30 a.m.

Mr. Cranley Onslow: I beg to move Amendment No. 3, in page 1, to leave out lines 12 and 13 and to insert:
'in the following manner; in the House of Lords by the Speaker or in the case of his absence by the person acting as such Speaker, and in the House of Commons by a member of Her Majesty's Household '.
The Amendment is intended to secure clarification. The debate on Second Reading left one or two points unclear. I accept the need for a Measure to amend our procedure, although hon. Members whose speeches are interrupted may fall into the trap of imagining that that speech or any speech is more important than it is. The hon. and learned Solicitor-General read out a list of ancient British rituals, and it seems that debate on the Floor of the House is in danger of degenerating into a similar ritualised process with no effect on the nation's affairs but merely reflecting the way things once were a long time ago. Perhaps power will be restored to this House, in which case that criticism would no longer apply.
My first point arises from the Attorney-General's reply on Second Reading to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Sir J. Hobson):
The Clerk of the Crown is at once an officer of the Crown and an officer of both Houses of Parliament. In communicating the Royal Assent, he will be acting as Clerk of the Crown and not as Permanent Secretary to the Lord Chancellor, so that his constitutional position in this exercise will be as Clerk of the Crown. But, as I have said, he is at once

not only an officer of the Crown but an officer of both Houses of Parliament, so that there is no derogation in any way of the authority of this House of the proposed machinery.
I hope that the Solicitor-General can reinforce that statement. Although two separate offices happen to be held by the same man, it is not necessarily any consolation that that man, wearing one hat, would be exercising a function which would not be a derogation of the functions of this House if he were wearing the other. He is acting as an officer of the Crown in communicating a message to Mr. Speaker and it is possible that this reform will make Mr. Speaker a mouthpiece of the Crown, because he will be acting on the instructions of a gentleman who is acting directly as a servant of the Crown.
Earlier in the Second Reading debate, the Attorney-General said:
This procedure is analogous to the certification by the Clerk of the Crown to the Speaker of returns of by-election writs."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th April, 1967; Vol 745, c. 24, 10.]
I am uncertain of the validity of that analogy and would be grateful for a more detailed explanation.
Erskine May says, on page 176, under the heading "Issue of Writs":
… writs are issued out of Chancery by a warrant from the Speaker, which he issues, when the House is sitting, upon the order of the House of Commons.
On page 181, it says:
For any place in Great Britain, the Speaker's warrant is directed to the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery: and for any place in Northern Ireland, to the Clerk of the Crown in Northern Ireland.
This suggests that the certification of writs originates with Mr. Speaker, that the actions taken in that process are on his authority, and that there can, therefore, be no question of his acting at any stage of that procedure on behalf of anyone but the House of Commons.
It is not a strictly analogous situation to what the Bill proposes. I hope that nothing in this new procedure will accidentally invalidate legislation affecting Northern Ireland. The second quotation from Erskine May that I gave shows that the Clerk of the Crown in Northern Ireland occupies a distinct position in the process of the issue of writs; he is not the same man as the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery. Recent reforms or attempts


at reform of our procedure have led to the suggestion that the most unlikely consequences inevitably flow from the actions of the mysterious "demon bungler" who appears to order the proposed reforms.
If my fears are well based and it is possible that the Bill will make Mr. Speaker technically merely a mouthpiece of the Crown in this context, my Amendment has merit as an alternative procedure. It is possible that a member of Her Majesty's Household, elegantly turned out and armed with a smart white wand, as he always is, could perform a similar procedure to read out the fact that Royal Assent has been given. If my alternative were adopted, it would not delay our proceedings. Perhaps some desirable reform could be achieved if we could substitute White Wand for Black Rod.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: I have not followed all the intricacies of the constitutional argument, but the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) summarised it by saying that the duties of Black Rod are in some way to be carried out by White Wand. This makes me wonder whether this will complicate our procedure still further. I would abolish White Wand as well as Black Rod, neither of which produces much of a colour scheme. White Wand serves little useful purpose except to come in on ceremonial occasions dressed up in the Victorian or early Queen Anne fashion, Thus certain duties are imposed on a Member of the House which could be abolished.
There is the custom of White Wand coming with his billiard cue and then walking backwards. I have never understood why an official of the House or the Crown in the twentieth century should be asked to walk backwards. That should be allowed to lapse. When Officers of the Household bring petitions to the House, they dump them in front of the Table and then turn their backs on the Chair and walk out.
I know that there is general sympathy with the gentleman who carries the White Wand, who has to march up slowly for seven paces—he suffers agonies of embarrassment counting whether he has taken seven, eight or nine—and then has to walk backwards. I do not want to see people walking backwards in this House.

I gather that the Amendment would mean more duties for this gentleman, who might perhaps have to walk backwards more often. We should not impose these duties upon the hon. Member who, according to our present practice, undertakes them.

The Solicitor-General: I can set the mind of the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) at rest. There is no question of Mr. Speaker becoming a servant of the Crown. He has always been a servant of the House. That has been recognised ever since the day when Charles I came to this House with soldiers at his back, demanding to know where the five Members had gone. Mr. Speaker leaned forward and replied:
I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak, except as the House should command me.
That is still the position.
What will happen under this Bill is that Her Majesty, unless she gives her consent in person in the other place, will give her consent to Bills by Letters Patent. The Clerk of the Crown in Chancery will then send his certificate to Mr. Speaker. He merely acts as a messenger, and nothing more. He does not authorise Mr. Speaker to do anything. Mr. Speaker will then notify this House that the Royal Assent has been given and there will be a similar notification given in the other place. The Clerk of the Parliaments will then write on the Bill "La Reine le veult" and fix the date—and it is from that date that the Statute becomes part of the law of the land.
There is nothing sinister and nothing which in any way interferes with the rights of this House or which alters the position of Mr. Speaker in what is proposed in the Bill. Nor is there anything which affects Northern Ireland. We are, of course, entitled to legislate for Northern Ireland if we think fit. Here again the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery is merely acting as a messenger to convey the news of the Royal Assent, and nothing more.
Nevertheless, we must consider the Amendment as it stands. The hon. Gentleman has suggested that instead of having a visit from Black Rod we might have one from White Rod. As the


Amendment stands, it provides that the Royal Assent may be notified
… by a member of Her Majesty's Household".
Presumably that includes any member of the Household. This opens up the most interesting possibilities for there is a wide category of those who might convey the Royal Assent. It might be conveyed to us by the Master of the Horse, the Extra Woman to the Bedchamber, the Hereditary Grand Almoner, the Poet Laureate or even the Keeper of Swans. Any of them might arrive here to convey the Royal Assent. I find that a most attractive proposition, but I must inform the hon. Gentleman that it goes so wide that I must ask the House to resist the Amendment.

Mr. Onslow: Fascinated though I am with the possibilities of the Amendment as outlined by the Solicitor General—and he has shown me that it would go far further than I had imagined in my wildest dreams—I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

10.45 a.m.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: I beg to move Amendment No. 4, in line 14, to leave out subsection 2.
The subsection states:
Nothing in this section affects the power of Her Majesty to declare Her Royal Assent in person in Parliament, or the manner in which an Act of Parliament is required to be endorsed in Her Majesty's name.
I cannot understand why this provision is in the Bill, particularly since it is a long time since the Sovereign arrived in Parliament to refuse to give the Royal Assent to a Bill. The authorities inform me that the last occasion was in 1709, when Queen Anne arrived here to refuse to give her assent to the Scottish Militia Bill. I have no doubt that the Solicitor-General is thoroughly acquainted with that Measure—better acquainted with it than he appears to be with the ceremonial at Burns suppers. However, it is about 250 years since the Soverign came to Parliament to say "No" to a Bill.
The last occasion on which the Monarch arrived in Parliament to go through this ceremony in person was some years ago—when Queen Victoria was aged 35.

She came here in person to give her assent to certain Measures passed by Parliament. She came, she saw—and she decided that she had had enough. She never came again. Neither did Edward VIII, George V, or George VI. No Monarch has bothered to come since.
This being so, I fail to see why, since this ceremony is not performed by Monarchs, we should arrange in this subsection to perpetuate something which is not a reality. Surely my right hon. and learned Friend would not argue that the Queen should come here to say "No" in person. After all, it is accepted now as a sound constitutional doctrine that the Monarch has absolutely no right to say "No", contrary to the advice of Her Ministers, to any Measure passed by Parliament. Indeed, it is stated in Erskine May:
The necessity of refusing the Royal Assent is removed by the strict observance of the constitutional principle, that the Crown has no will but that of its Ministers, who only continue to serve in that capacity so long as they retain the confidence of Parliament.
In the Parliamentary Dictionary, that classical work, Abraham and Hawtrey, states:
Although the royal assent is a part of the Queen's prerogative, it has not been refused to a bill since Queen Anne withheld her assent from the Scottish Militia Bill in 1707; and it is difficult to conceive of circumstances in which it could be refused today.
This is, therefore, an empty ceremony, and I want to know what it is doing in the Bill. Does the Solicitor-General think that the Queen can say "No"? If so, he should make that clear. I understand that she can normally only say "Yes".
If the Queen decided to come here in person there would be even further complications, because I understand that the Queen is not allowed in this House, even in the Royal Gallery. To include subsection (2) in the Bill would appear, therefore, not to be good law, not to be good constitutional law and not to be commonsense. It has probably been inserted by some constitutional fusspot who does not know what the exact position is. Since Queen Anne was the last Monarch to refuse the Royal Assent to a Bill—and that was 250 years ago—and since Queen Victoria was the last Monarch to think it worth while coming here in person to give her assent, how does my right hon. and learned Friend


consider this provision to be worth while and that it is possible that a Monarch will want to come here to give the Royal Assent to Bills?
I cannot think that the Queen would be so anxious to see this House that she would want to come here in person to announce her assent to Bills. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend will explain the exact position and will confirm that the Monarch was no constitutional right to say "No" to the giving of the Royal Assent. After all, we must consider what happened to Charles I—and we know what happened to him. It is a good thing that certain things happened to him, but we do not want any unfortunate incidents like that to occur again. Indeed, we know what happened to the Duke of Windsor.
I therefore ask the Solicitor-General to tell us what this subsection is doing in the Bill; and for an assurance that it is the policy of Her Majesty's Government to insist on the rights, principles and privileges that this House has succeeded in maintaining.

Mr. Buck: We on this side oppose the Amendment. First, there is the constitutional point which I raised in connection with the hon. Member's earlier Amendment, and with which I should like the Solicitor General to deal. A point like this was regarded in another place as being of some seriousness and consequence. The Lord Chancellor's observations on this point on 18th March are set out in col. 453 of the OFFICIAL REPORT but I shall not go into them now, having already adumbrated them once.
As has been pointed out, the position is that the Sovereign has not come here to signify the Assent since 1854, but we on this side see no reason why the power should not be retained for Her Majesty to come here if she so wished. I should have thought that Her Majesty would be entirely welcome if she did come to give the Royal Assent in person, but I believe this to be entirely a matter for her Prerogative.
As has been said, the constitutional position is set out with complete accuracy, as one would expect, in Erskine May where it is stated:
The necessity of refusing the Royal Assent is removed by the strict observance of the con-

stitutional principle, that the Crown has no will but that of its Ministers, who only continue to serve in that capacity so long as they retain the confidence of Parliament.
That seems to be an accurate exposition of the constitutional position, but I should have thought that there was great significance in the words at the conclusion of that short passage:
… Ministers, who only continue to serve in that capacity so long as they retain the confidence of Parliament.'
I should think that the only circumstance in which the Monarch might be justified in refusing the assent would be if there had been some chicanery relative to Parliament, but if there had been some chicanery relative to Parliament, I should have thought that the position was open. If someone had imprisoned a large number of Members of Parliament and had then tried to get a Bill through, that might open up the position—

Mr. Emrys Hughes: The hon. Member has enunciated an important principle. Is it the policy of the Opposition that the Queen has the right to refuse her Assent to a Bill on the ground that it is chicanery?

Mr. Buck: The hon. Gentleman knows very well that that is not my view. I have personally endorsed the proposition which has been laid down in Erskine May. I would say in my personal capacity that the question could only arise if there had been mass arrests or any such remote or absurd possibility—absurd as long as we are vigilant in these matters. I myself entirely endorse the proposition in Erskine May. It seems to me that this is a power which should be retained for Her Majesty.
As I understand that the hon. Gentleman may not have consulted Her Majesty as to whether this truncation of the Royal Prerogative is acceptable to her, I am doubtful about the propriety of the Amendment. The provision does not, I think, do any harm being on the Statute Book, and could, in some circumstances, be of value.

The Solicitor-General: I can at once give my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) the assurance for which he asks: it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to uphold in every respect both the constitution and the rights of the House.


But no one really envisages a situation in which the Royal Assent would be withheld from a Bill that has passed both Houses.
There remains the fact that the Royal Assent is an essential part of our legislative process. Until it is given, no Bill becomes an Act of Parliament. At the present time, the ceremony to which we are accustomed is the ceremony under which the Assent is given on behalf of Her Majesty. It is perfectly true, as my hon. Friend has said, that not since 1854 has the Sovereign come in person to give the Assent in the other place, but there is no reason why Her Majesty should not. On this occasion, I agree with the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck) that if Her Majesty did decide to give her Royal Assent in person and we were summoned to the Bar of the other place, we would all be delighted.
I know, or at least I am fairly certain, that my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire, who is, like myself, something of a connoisseur of Parliamentary occasions, would be present to witness the event.

Amendment negatived.

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported, without Amendment.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

Mr. Buck: In welcoming the Bill on behalf of the Opposition, I would make only one small comment. The signifying of the Royal Assent up to now has caused inconvenience in that there have been frequent interruptions of our business here. On Second Reading, the right hon. and learned Attorney-General said that in the last 12 months the House had been interrupted ten times, and this has been commented on in some articles. There have, in fact, been eleven such occasions in the last 12 months, but the average period of the interruption has not been about half an hour, as was indicated by the Attorney-General, but 13 minutes. It is right to have that correction on the record.
The main point is the inconvenience caused rather than the actual amount of

time taken up. The interruptions all seem to come at an inconvenient time—particularly on one occasion in the last 12 months when I was anxious to catch the Speaker's eye and was not able to do so. The figures I have given show that only about two and a half hours of Parliamentary business time have been lost. We are however, very glad that the ceremony is to be retained.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, without Amendment.

Orders of the Day — SUPERANNUATION (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) [MONEY] (No. 2)

Queen's Recommendation having been signified—

Resolved,
That, for the purpose of any Act of the present Session to amend the law relating to pensions and other similar payments, it is expedient to authorise any increase in sums payable out of moneys provided by Parliament which is attributable to any provision of that Act amending the provisions of the Teachers' Superannuation Act 1967 or the Education (Scotland) Act 1962 with respect to the sum representing interest which, for the purposes of the said Act of 1967 or of 1962, is to be treated as having been paid into the revenues of the teachers' superannuation account for any accounting period beginning on or after 1st April 1961.—[Mr. MacDermot.]

SUPERANNUATION (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) BILL

As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

New Clause.—(TEACHERS SUPERANNUATION ACCOUNTS.)

(1) As respects any accounting period within the meaning of Schedule 1 to the Teachers' Superannuation Act 1967 or Schedule 6 to the Education (Scotland) Act 1962 beginning on or after 1st April 1961—

(a) paragraph 3(1)(d) of the said Schedule 1 and paragraph 2(3) of the said Schedule 6 (which relate to the sum representing interest which is to be treated as having been paid into the revenue of the teachers' superannuation account under the Act in question for each accounting period) shall each have effect with the substitution for the words from 'at the rate' onwards of the words at such rate as may be determined in accordance with regulations made by the Secretary of State with the consent of the Treasury


on the amount of any balance of revenue over expenditure remaining at the end of the last preceding accounting period, and a further sum representing interest at such rate as may be determined as aforesaid on any balance of revenue (other than that further sum) over expenditure during the accounting period in question, and any such regulations may make different provision for different balances and different accounting periods and may provide as respects any balance to which the regulations relate—

(i) for the determination of the rate of interest on that balance on the basis of a notional investment of that balance, or of any part or parts thereof, made after consultation with the Government Actuary; and
(ii) for different rates of interest, or different methods of determining the rates of interest, for different parts of that balance;'
(b) paragraph 4 of Schedule 1 to the said Act of 1967 is hereby repealed.
(2) Section 144(2) and (3) of the said Act of 1962 shall not apply to any regulations made under that Act by virtue of the foregoing subsection, hut before making any such regulations the Secretary of State shall consult with representatives of education authorities and of teachers appearing to him to be likely to be affected by them.—[Mrs. Shirley Williams.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

11.0 a.m.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mrs. Shirley Williams): I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
This Clause gives the Secretary of State power, by means of regulations, to alter the basis of establishing the interest rate applicable to the teachers' superannuation accounts for Scotland and for England and Wales, at present statutorily fixed at 3½ per cent. The point was raised in Committee and I promised to give it consideration on Report.
The object is to reflect more rapidly movements in interest rates. The immediate effect is expected to be a reduction in the additional burdens which might fall upon local education authorities by way of employers' superannuation contributions.
Contributions under the teachers' superannuation schemes are not funded; they are paid into the Exchequer, which meets the cost of all the benefits. An account of income and expenditure is, however, kept, and the schemes are valued by the Government Actuary under statutory arrangements which include the crediting of interest at the

rate of 3½ per cent. on the balance standing to the credit of the accounts.
Ever since his first valuations in 1933, the Government Actuary has had to report that the assets in the schemes were insufficient to meet the prospective liabilities. An Act passed in 1956 laid down new arrangements for dealing with these matters. The Government put large credits into the accounts to bring them into balance as at 31st March, 1956; teachers' contributions were increased from 5 per cent. to 6 per cent., but an assurance was given that there would be no further increase; employers' contributions were similarly raised, and employers became liable to pay supplementary contributions to extinguish, in 40 years, any deficit revealed by a subsequent valuation. The great majority of teachers are employed by local education authorities, who of course receive assistance from Government grants. The Government Actuary's valuations, relating to the period 1956–61, showed large deficits, due mainly to increases in salaries, to which schemes of this type are highly vulnerable. As a result, employers' contributions were raised automatically, under the terms of the 1956 Act, from 6 per cent. to 8½ per cent. in England and Wales and from 6 per cent. to 8 per cent. in Scotland with effect from 1st April, 1966. Further valuation reports, dealing with the period 1961–66, ought to be available next year, and local authorities are wondering what they will bring forth. In the circumstances they have drawn attention to the effect on the valuations of what now appears to be an unjustifiably low interest rate, and the Government have agreed that a change ought to be made.
The interest rate of 3½per cent. was laid down in the Act of 1925. Of course, interest rates fluctuated in subsequent years, but up to 1956, or perhaps for a year or two later, 3½ per cent. could still be regarded as a justifiable long-term rate. In fact, the 3½per cent. rate compared reasonably with the actual average yield on gilt-edged securities during the 30 years or so following 1925. During the last eight to 10 years, however, we have been in a period of nationally and internationally very high rates, often in practice associated with rapid growth in incomes. In the circumstances, the interest rate of 3½ per cent., whether


or not it can be justified in the very long-term, undeniably threatens to impose undue burdens on local authorities in the next few years.
The Clause proposes that the method of determining the rate of interest should in future be laid down by the Secretary of State by means of regulations. Unfortunately, it is by no means a straightforward matter to adjust the 3½ per cent. to a more appropriate rate. In the first place, it is necessary to take account of the schemes' long history. Some of the money now standing to the schemes' credit derive from payments made before the second world war, going back, in fact, to 1922. In addition, there are the large balancing credits which the Government put into the account in 1956 which in fact more than doubled the then existing balances; the interest rate of 3½ per cent. was a significant factor in calculating the credits, and although this does not necessarily mean that they should be tied to this rate for all time, it is not a straightforward matter to adjust them.
When we look to the future, although an attempt will be made in the first set of regulations to introduce arrangements that will not need constant adjustment, it seems reasonably certain that they will need to be reviewed from time to time in the light of changing economic conditions. In the present period of rapid change and development, the flexibility of regulations seems to be the right answer. Notional investment of the kind envisaged by the Clause follows the practice now being applied to the other large public service pension scheme which is financed similarly, the one covering employees in the National Health Service, and of course smaller schemes covering the Atomic Energy Authority.
So far as England and Wales are concerned the regulations will be made under Section 15 of the Teachers' Superannuation Act, 1967, which provides that they shall be subject to negative Resolution and that the Secretary of State is required to consult representatives of local education authorities and teachers appearing to him to be likely to be affected. Naturally the main discussions in the first instance will be with the local authorities, because they will bear the financial impact. Similar arrangements will apply in respect of the Scottish regulations.
The immediate effect of the new proposals is likely to be to relieve local education authorities of some of the additional burdens which might otherwise fall on them as a result of another valuation under the existing arrangements. The next valuation reports should be available next year, and the Clause cannot under the terms of existing legislation affect the rate of employers' superannuation contributions until the beginning of the financial year after they are made. Although credited to the teachers' superannuation accounts, employers' superannuation contributions are, in fact, paid into the Exchequer, which may thus be surrendering a significant, though perhaps unwarranted, source of prospective income.
The amounts involved are, of course, substantially reduced by their effect on Government grants to local authorities, but even so the Clause might move an appreciable part of teachers' superannuation from the local education authorities to the Government. It is impossible at this stage to give any firm figures, as the new interest rates remain to be determined in consultation with the other interested parties, and we cannot anticipate the results of the Government Actuary's valuations, for which all the necessary data are not yet available.

Mrs. Margaret Thatcher: I thank the Minister of State for keeping me in touch the whole time with her intentions about tabling this new Clause. I noted that in her very detailed explanation she pointed out the results of the last quinquennial review would not be available until next year, but also that the purpose of the Clause is to reduce the burden on local authorities. Very clearly there will be some net cost to the Exchequer. I appreciate that she cannot tell me exactly what that will be, for the reasons she has given, but it would be helpful if we could have some idea of the order of the amount that this cost will be. Over the quinquennial period, will it be £1 million, £5 million or £10 million? It would be helpful if the hon. Lady could give some idea within those limited figures.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: Once again I should say "subject to reservations". The figures on which the valuation will be made are not available, and there is the further reservation that the whole matter


is subject to discussion with local education authorities. Broadly speaking, if there was a reduction in supplementary contribution of about 1 per cent.—at the last valuation the increase was approximately 2 per cent.—this would cost a gross figure of about £6 million a year. In general terms, allowing for rate support grant, there would be an additional figure of about £2½ million per annum. If based on the 2 per cent. decrease in contributions the order could be about twice that figure, although it might be less.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time and added to the Bill.

Clause 5.—(PALESTINE AND PAKISTAN PENSIONS.)

Mrs. Thatcher: I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 6, line 27, at the end to insert:
'not excluding pensions or other benefits which, under any agreement for the time being in force between Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and some other government, are payable by that other government'.
The purpose of this Amendment will be clear to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury from the discussions we had in Committee. It is to clarify a point which was raised then. As the Financial Secretary will be aware, most people who served the Palestine Administration have been receiving a pension either from our own Government or from the Israeli Government. But there appears to be a small group of people who at present are not actually getting any pension although a pension is being paid into a blocked account. They are those employees of the Palestine Administration who were resident in Palestine until comparatively recently. They therefore fall under provisions of the 1950 Agreement we had with the Government of Israel, and the Israeli Government agreed to pay the pensions of these former employees who were then resident in Palestine.
The group to whom I refer have since left Israel and are not at present receiving pensions either from our Government or from the Israeli Government, although the moneys are being paid into an account in Israel. I am concerned that Clause 5 should give our Government discretionary powers to make pay-

ments until such time as the position sorted out with the Israeli Government. I am sure that the Israeli Government will be most helpful and co-operative. I have always found them so in any previous discussions or questions which have been raised with them.
It looks as if there may be powers in Clause 5(1,b), but that provision refers to "ex gratia payments" in respect of the former Palestine employees. I am not sure whether a pension, which is a continuing periodic payment, could be adjudged an ex gratia payment within paragraph (b), nor am I sure whether it would be enough to make payment of such pension on condition that the sums were recovered from the blocked account when the moneys in that account were released.
My main concern is that those who served the Palestine Administration and who are entitled to pensions now should get them. They should have some visible means of support, whether they live here, in Australia, or anywhere else. I shall be quite happy if the Financial Secretary tells me that he has power to make payment of these pensions pending the sorting out of arrangements with Israel.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Niall MacDermot): I think that the hon. Lady the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) has in mind in particular the case of one pensioner who is at present resident in Australia and who, I think, has taken out Australian citizenship. Although there may be a few other people in a similar position, it may be helpful if we discuss this problem in relation to the facts of the case.
The person in question was a local employee of the former Palestine Administration who continued to reside in Israel when that Administration came to an end. Under the Anglo-Israel Agreement of 1950, the Israel Government accepted responsibility for the payment of pensions to former Palestine Government officers who were then resident in Israel. This was one of a number of considerations which were taken into account in the financial settlement which was embodied in that Agreement.
The pension was paid by the Israel Government in accordance with the provisions of the Agreement and no difficulty arose until the pensioner left Israel in 1963 to go and live in Australia. The


difficulties arose because of the tight exchange control restrictions operated by the Israel Government. They have not suspended his pension. It is still being paid, but it is being paid into a blocked account in Israel. Therefore, to that extent it cannot be said that the Israel Government are in default of their obligation under the 1950 Agreement.
Obviously, this is a very unsatisfactory position from the point of view of the pensioner, who took the matter up with the Conservative Government, who told him what the legal position was, as I have just outlined it, but they agreed to take up his case and to make representations on his behalf to the Israel authorities. Those representations were not successful at the time, but they have been continuing and the present Government have continued to urge upon the Israel Government that it would be right to release these pensions to the blocked accounts.
We understand that there is some indication that the Israel Government may be prepared to relax their attitude towards the payment of pensions outside Israel. Her Majesty's Government will continue to do whatever they can to move the Israel Government to make the necessary foreign exchange available, but we cannot agree that it would be right for us to seek to meet this situation by paying the pension ourselves; for to do so would merely be to invite the Israel Government to withdraw from a responsibility which they have never sought to repudiate. I hope that these representations will be successful before too long.
11.15 a.m.
I will now seek to answer directly the legal question which the hon. Lady put to me as to whether we would be able, if we were so minded, to make any ex gratia payment by way of advance—I think she suggested until the blocked accounts were released. The advice I have is that there would be power under subsection (1,b), which is sufficiently widely worded, to enable payments of that kind to be made ex gratia, because, for the reasons I have explained, there is no legal obligation on Her Majesty's Government to pay them.
It is only right that I should reiterate that it would not be our intention to use the power under subsection (1,b) for this

purpose. We hope, instead, that we shall find a satisfactory solution to this problem as a result of the action which has been taken through diplomatic representations.

Mrs. Thatcher: If the Financial Secretary has the power, perhaps I can harry him on another occasion as to the way in which he uses that power. If he is satisfied that an advance would fall under the phraseology "ex gratia payments", which it clearly does not, I am happy that he has the power. I should have thought that an advance is not an ex gratia payment by any reasoning. However, I accept the hon. and learned Gentleman's assurance. As extra statutory payments have been made before, and perhaps could be made again, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Bill read the Third time and passed.

POST OFFICE (DATA PROCESSING SERVICE) BILL

Order read for resuming Adjourned debate on Question[19th April], That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Question again proposed.

11.17 a.m.

Dr. Reginald Bennett: When the debate was adjourned, my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) was addressing the House. I am sorry that we are not able to find out what he was about to tell us regarding the late Aneurin Bevan's views on excess capacity. However, as my hon. Friend has not been able to turn up this morning, I should like—

Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: I have received a letter from my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) expressing his deep regret that he cannot be present this morning.

Dr. Bennett: So we shall never know.

Mr. David Webster: Yes, we can know.

Dr. Bennett: Perhaps we can ask my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough in less formal surroundings, but the


House as a House will never know, unless at a later stage he chooses to enlighten us.
Speaking with a certain amount of experience of national and international data transmission links, and so on, and having financial interests in companies that use computers and international links with computers, I find the Bill extremely interesting. It holds out immense potentialities for both good and harm. The primary purposes, not only as expressed in the Bill, because the Bill expresses almost nothing, but as expressed by Ministers on several occasions, are wholly admirable. There is no doubt that it is an obviously laudable aim to have the institution of a computer network in this country.
If I may add a local point I am very pleased that the Postmaster-General intends that Portsmouth shall be the home of one of the installations that he proposes to make under the Bill. I am sure that this is a very pleasant fact locally.
The economics of the affair are enormous and will be a tremendous thing to try to amortise. To find the capital required for such a vast series of large computer installations as are intended will be bad enough, but to do so at a time of "all spend and no earn" such as we are in at present will prove an insuperable load for a Government whose financial expertise has not been noticeable so far.
We cannot be sure that the use of this computer installation and network will not represent an attempt to shut out private installations and networks. We have been told that this will not be so, but there is nothing to that effect in the Bill. Many admirable sentiments are expressed by Ministers in introducing Bills, but, because they are never expressed in the text, they are not noticeably put into effect after the Bills reach the Statute Book.
I have grave doubts, also, about the likelihood of interchangeability in the standards to be adopted. We have had the laudable statement that the network of data machinery to be installed by the Post Office will be of British origin—that is excellent—but there are already in this country many computers which are nor, of British origin. Have we any hope that the computers already installed will be able to talk to the computers

which the Government will put in? Will they speak different languages or different variants of the Anglo-Saxon binary language? May we know that the common computer language used, for instance, by I.B.M. will be favoured, or shall be so narrowly nationalistic as to make our own set-up unable to converse with its American computer counterparts? It would be an enormous mistake if, in our keen nationalism, we shut out the possibility of using other computers which, after all, are quite well developed.
My doubts about the Bill are these. First, we have here, perhaps, as short a Bill as has ever been seen in the House which enables, perhaps, as big an expenditure of money and potential as has ever been proposed. It is one of these Socialist enabling measures which loose off a tremendous potential in only a few words—to be precise, a line and a half—
providing services and facilities for the processing of data by computer"—
giving us, as it were, the loom of a vast object seen through a fog not of words on this occasion but of lack of words. It is a most laconic Measure loosing off the biggest undertaking I have ever come across, and I suspect it deeply for that reason.
Under Socialism, who knows what is being enabled if, in good faith, we give the right to a Socialist Government to put through a Measure so simply expressed? What will the ends of this development be? If they lead us into all sorts of byways in the future, we shall probably be told that the House of Commons passed the enabling Measure years before, although the ultimate developments have nothing whatever to do with the purpose originally understood. This is a material question, at least if Socialism is to last long enough to take us into such matters.
Another aspect of the Bill which I dislike intensely is the trend towards monopoly. Already, we have a monopoly not of computers but of communications, the monopoly of all the land lines or radio links which will be available, so that no one can communicate except through the Post Office. Now, the Post Office is to go into what can only be understood as competitive business. This means that the competition will be not that of financial


and operating efficiency but that which consists of having the communications and defying anyone else to use them against the Post Office.
This state of affairs gives me the deepest misgiving. It ought not to be tolerated. In exchange for these rights, the Post Office should yield on the point of permitting other data links, whether radio or land line, to be used in the setting up of independent or private computer networks throughout the country. Then we should have real competition, and we could see who did it best.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mr. David Price) has already asked the question, how can it be seriously proposed to have this high grade and incredibly carefully calculated system of communications when the ordinary crude communications systems which you and I, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, attempt to use between ourselves and with others are so hopelessly disrupted by the land line system at present run by the Post Office? I say this with great feeling. If it were not for the awful inefficiencies of the Post Office communications system, we should have had in existence already, if not nationwide at least widespread, computer communications of a well advanced kind. I can vouch for one such example myself.
A company with which I am associated had a trial in connection with a computer which we wished to install. The company wishing to sell us the computer, quite properly, wanted to sell us data transmission machinery which would go with it and link our headquarters in various parts of the country. Nothing could be more attractive than such a proposal. The company staged a demonstration not only of the computer but of the data transmission machinery, and the data transmission machinery was linked to a headquarters 100 miles from London. A lot of data was fed in, was transmitted, and was processed at the other end in a simple manner, and was then to be transmitted back again, the intention being to show the speed with which the data link worked. After half the land line communications had broken down three times in the course of the few seconds needed for this vast compressed mass of data to go to the other end and be sent back again, the experi-

ment was abandoned. We never bought the data transmission machinery.
I speak, therefore, with a certain amount of knowledge of the matter. With our telephone and land line links in the deplorable state they are in now, we are likely to go off at half cock in having an advanced computer network, especially such a massive network as is proposed. If computers are talking to one another, who knows when they get things wrong? How is anyone to find out whether someone pulled a plug out on the board at the wrong moment or whether there was a bit of grit under one of the contacts in the automatic units?
As things are at the moment, I do a good deal of complaining about the inefficacy of our post and communications services. I have tested the patience of the Clerks at the Table in repeatedly putting in complaints about defects in the communications services of my constituency and between the constituency and other parts of the country. If oral complaints in the House of Commons are so ineffectual, what hope will a silent computer have of getting itself heard when the land lines break down and all sorts of rubbish comes out? Plenty of telephone bills have to be annulled nowadays because of the nonsense which is sometimes recorded, for example, when someone who hardly uses the telephone except for emergencies receives a bill for hundreds of pounds. We are told that the computer "had a cold" or was "sick" that day.
I become very alarmed when it is suggested that ambitious schemes of the kind now proposed are to be started on the basis of a crazy system such as we have at present.
Another desperately serious point on which the Postmaster-General has attempted to assure us, but about which I am far from assured and shall take a good deal of assurance, is the confidentiality of secrets committed to the Post Office computer network. In addition to personal matters there is the whole question of business and trade secrets, which will be of paramount value to the companies concerned. What will happen about them, especially under a Government which sees fit to employ a "Prymaster-General"?
The build-up is very disagreeable to contemplate. We start with what may be regarded by Ministers as proper inquiries by the Income Tax authorities, and no Postmaster-General would deny them the right to probe into the computer network to find out everything they wished to know. But what will happen when the Income Tax and other tax authorities—perhaps I should say the Corporation Tax authorities—start doing such things as the Income Tax authorities recently did with Stencil No. 85? What will happen when they start claiming information to which they are not legally entitled, when they print reams of forms as alarming to the individual as other forms and people, sheep-like, fill them in? What will happen when utterly unjust inquiries are demanded of the computer system? The Postmaster-General must be a tax expert before he can tell the tax people whether they can probe into the computer system.
If we once start having probes by the tax men, what about the time a generation hence when, although Socialism has been exploded, a new generation has grown up that does not know Socialism and new attempts at nationalisation are made by the next generation of Socialist Ministers? Why should they not probe through the computer system land lines the industries they want to nationalise? We know that they never learn; they will always want to nationalise, even if they are doing precious little now in order to keep themselves popular. Probing with a view to nationalisation will be regarded by Socialist Ministers as being proper and necessary in the public interest. That blows confidentiality sky high, and from there it is only a small way to having party delving.
I have the profoundest misgivings about what will happen to people who hand over their precious secrets to the Post Office computer network, where they are at the disposal of anybody who chooses to ferret around looking for dirt. This is an absurdly broad enabling Bill. The Postmaster-General would have done much better to bring in a Bill which gave a specific description of what he intended to do in the first instance and discussed it in some detail in Parliament. I have the profoundest misgivings about giving the Bill a passage through the House.

11.34 a.m.

Mr. David Webster: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett) on his very wise remarks. He has a great knowledge of the subject, as he has of every subject about which he speaks in the House, but he has a particular knowledge in this case, and I am grateful for what he has taught me.
The Bill is horribly vague, and when a Bill is horribly vague one wants to know why, and to know the motive behind the vagueness. In addition, as far as I can see there is no Financial Resolution, which rather worries me. I wonder if this is the last we shall see of the Bill on the Floor of the House. There was no White Paper, and, therefore, it seems that the Government are concealing something. It is the function of the House to find out what they are concealing, and why they seek to do so.
I read the Postmaster-General's opening remarks because I was unable to be here last Wednesday. Although I am a layman on these subjects, they seemed somewhat Delphic. We should be wrong if we allowed the Bill to have its Second Reading, or even its Committee stage, without a very thorough answer to the questions so admirably put by my hon. Friends the Members for Eastleigh (Mr. David Price), Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. J. H. Osborn), and other hon. Members. They are important and significant matters.
The worst problem is that of competition. If the service is to be completely competitive we want an assurance that the accounts will be rendered separately from the report and accounts of the Post Office as a whole. If the Postmaster-General is to give credibility to his claim that the service will be absolutely competitive he will have no fear of publishing the accounts in absolute detail, and he will assist us at the present stage if he will assure us that that will be done, and that the accounts will be separate.
The Postmaster-General talks about the full cost being £9 million by 1971 to cover 20 large computers. We should know the return on the investment capital, the rate of amortisation and the way in which the overheads will he allocated.


Those are basic essentials. As a member of the Select Committee on the Nationalised Industries who read with affection of some of the allocation of overheads in British Railways workshops, I know that without separate accounting and the rate of amortisation being made clear, there is not a hope of seeing whether the service is really competitive.
Another point concerns the efficiency of those doing the accounts to make sure that the costs are absolutely accurately allocated. With great respect to the Civil Service, we know that there is a shortage of cost officers in the public service at the present. How many cost officers will need to be recruited to allocate the costs between the different parts of the service? We have seen the problem with reference to the Ministry of Aviation, and we all know very well that the answer depends to a great extent on the ability of the public service to give a salary for those officers that is competitive with that in industry.
The increase of £9 million has come at a time when the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I am told, has assurred a backbench committee of his party that there will be a reduction, or very severe inspection, of public expenditure. Perhaps that comes under the issue of confidentiality, with which I hope to deal later. It is right to remind the House and the Postmaster-General of the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke), whether one of the reasons why the Postmaster-General had to make his statement on 6th April was that
… the Post Office has over-committed itself in computer investment only to find that it cannot make full use of the investment already committed?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 8th April, 1967; Vol 744, c. 468.]
Why are we to have this tremendous expenditure allied with a considerable increase in the Post Office's borrowing powers this year, at a time when private industry is being very severely "squozen"? That is a new word, which I hope may be recorded one day in Webster's Revised Dictionary. The point about borrowing powers is important when many firms in private industry, including many independent computer bureaux, are having great difficulty in raising finance. As my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar

Nicholls) said, the late Aneurin Bevan had definite views on how over-capacity would be used for advancing the purposes of Socialism. We want to examine this closely.
Various assessments are given of this industry's over-capacity, some of them frighteningly above even 50 per cent., so that one wonders whether it is necessary to increase it. Is the Post Office going beyond its correct management rôle? It is essential that a nationalised industry's management role should be defined and that it should stay within it. When politicians interfere with an industry, there is bound to be a political directive which deflects it from its management role. I suspect that that is happening, concealed behind this small Bill.
Who will allocate time, at a peak period of demand, and say who will get the line at that time and the use of the computer? Who will adjudicate that justice is being done between the public and the private sector? There are many occasions when the public sector must get through important messages and data, but, in justice to the other sector, if we are to operate a mixed economy, there must be adequate adjudication of priority.
This £9 million will create an increased patronage in the industry. It makes the computer manufacturer more dependent on the nationalised industry, and there comes a time when this begins to have dangerous implications throughout industry. How much of the money will be spent on machines—we are told that there is already a surplus—and how much on the "software", the processing side? Unless we know, it is impossible for us to judge whether the basic management tenets are being properly applied.
On the "little island" basis which we have, I fear, particularly under the present Government, what special arrangements will be made with the O.E.C.D. Computer Research Centre at Ispra, in Italy? This is a valuable form of data processing which could be most helpful. If we are to go into a co-ordinated framework, a national computer grid, the House wants to know further how it will be done.
We must remind the right hon. Gentleman that his function is not to produce the computers and arrange the varying controls of our economy and society which might eventually result, but to provide the


line and I wish that he would stick to this and leave the main computer services to other people who do it on a proven commercial basis.
One of my greater worries is confidentiality. My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett) referred to Stencil 85. The trouble is that the House puts out so many powers that those in the Departments often find it difficult to know when they are exceeding a power. With the most innocent motives, it is possible to issue a document like Stencil 85 without Parliamentary authority. Whether it is necessary or not—I do not know—it is still an infringement of the liberty of the individual. What frightened me more than the Stencil itself was that when it was withdrawn the Financial Secretary implied that this was the correct thing to do and that this approach was the right one for the conduct of Government business.
This is terrifying. We have today what we think is a small Bill, but I wonder how far the implications will go, not only o getting power over discussions in our community. The question of allowing it, with the Financial Secretary's attitude towards confidentiality, also makes me very nervous. The House would do well to reconsider the Bill thoroughly before giving it a Second Reading.

11.45 a.m.

Mr. David Howell: As several hon. Members have said, the Bill has profound implications, and that will be agreed whether we are for it or against it. I therefore share the amazement of my hon. Friends that a Measure which may affect the fabric of our society in a few years' time should have been shoved away as non-controversial last Wednesday. I am grateful that we have this further opportunity to discuss it, as I could not attend last Wednesday. However, even now, this is not exactly "peak listening hour".
Since last Wednesday, a comment on this matter has appeared which reads:
Even among those who most welcome the scheme there ought to be sufficient misgivings to make them wish to see it debated—that is to say, contested. If Parliament is trying to recapture some authority from the technocrats, it should not simply rubber-stamp the present proposals.

That comment appeared in the New Statesman, written by Mr. Nigel Calder, who went on to warn against the almost inevitable dangers of a monopoly in this situation.
At the end of his excellent article, he used the striking phrase, "the infrastructure of tyranny". Those are strong words, particularly from the New Statesman. I believe that Mr. Calder used them because he understands the very profound implications of this, the tremendous consequences for the shape of our lives in a few years' time. Does the Postmaster-General also accept the full implications? In view of the absence of a White Paper and the tucking away of this enabling Measure among non-controversial business, the evidence is that he does not.
My second question concerns the capital financing. Obviously, vast amounts of capital will be required as the scheme expands and we move into the era of the national computer service, the national grid of which the right hon. Gentleman spoke. Will all the capital come from the State? If it does, is this the way to ensure that the initiative of private enterprise and the new techniques and flexible thinking which will be required are introduced? There would be immense gains and not losses by making sure that, far from confining the whole of the financing to the State, ways of introducing private capital were found in future.
My third question concerns the rule of privacy. This cannot be met by a shake of the head, as it is of fundamental importance. When we are moving into an era in which the Government take over the whole national network of communication in this form, the Government themselves are bound to lay down carefully and precisely the rules of privacy and those which will cover the allocation of time and the access to information by bodies and firms—

Mr. Tam Dalyell: Does the hon. Gentleman think that there should be a national network? If the Government do not run it, who should?

Mr. Howell: I was about to say that I am convinced that this is an exciting and important idea. Certainly, there should be a national computer service. What I am saying is that there is every possibility of introducing both public power and private resources into its


running. In other countries, it is possible to run national network not exclusively on the basis of nationalised industries. It is possible, using imagination, to think of many agencies combining public power and private resources. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has studied institutions in Italy and elsewhere—which combine private efficiency and public power.
The very importance of the Bill means that it is one which, in the words of Mr. Calder, Parliament should not "rubber stamp". It raises fundamental problems about the position of the State versus the people. It is an immensely exciting idea, but gives hon. Members a good opportunity to serve notice that we do not accept complete State ownership in this or other nationalised spheres as the perfect solution. We believe that there will be, in the future, ways in which we can reintroduce private enterprise into sectors of this kind.
We intend to pursue these ideas for three reasons—so that the impetus of the private sector may be utilised and good service given as, unfortunately, in too many parts of the public sector it is not; so that ownership may be genuinely spread and not spuriously claimed by the Government on behalf of the people when nothing of the sort exists; and, finally, so that there may be no State monopoly of the control or ownership of the communications system which will bind our society together a few years hence. These are questions and worries that I feel that both sides of the House should share.

11.50 a.m.

Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: The Postmaster-General, whom we are very glad to see present this morning, must be a little surprised at the way in which this debate has gone. When we saw this business put down on the Order Paper for a morning sitting we could only assume that the Government imagined that the Bill would be a non-controversial exercise and that a good deal of it would be dealt with virtually "on the nod".
As it is, I believe that both the right hon. Gentleman and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology will agree that during two mornings we have had an extremely interesting and thoughtful debate. It is, how-

ever, regrettable that as a result of the procedure laid down for morning sittings we have had this debate cut in half, with the result that some hon. Members found it possible to be here on Wednesday morning but not on Monday morning.
As a result, some of those who have already taken part in the debate will not be able to hear the Joint Parliamentary Secretary's reply. I hope that by now we have established that a Bill of this importance should not be taken during morning sittings.
In the light of our debate, it might be most convenient if I were now to try to confine my remarks under five headings: first, the basic principles underlying the Bill; secondly, the nature of the Bill—what it does; third, the financial aspects; fourth, the merits—or perhaps might say the demerits—of a national computer grid fifth, the special position of the Post Office and the most appropriate role for it to play in the computer field.
I begin by speaking about the principles on which the Bill is based. Whether we believe that this is a good or a bad Bill, we cannot avoid facing the fact that it contains powers to enable yet another State-controlled insitution to diversify its activities into a field into which private enterprise is already tending to move. This at once makes the Bill of considerable importance to the relative party philosophies. In other words, we would be making a mistake if we assumed that there was not a very deep party issue here.
Although I do not propose to elaborate that argument now, we must recognise that what we are here doing is to give the Post Office power to move into a field which is not nearly as automatically a field of monopoly as is the case with all the other activities undertaken by the Post Office under the Post Office Act, 1961, which the Bill amends. This means that if we are to give the Post Office—or, indeed, any other nationalised undertaking—the right to diversify into new fields where private enterprise is already establishing itself, we should consider simultaneously giving power to private enterprise to move in to what has been a monopolistic field, hitherto only occupied by State institutions.
That is the great philosophical issue between the parties, and it is something


that we have to watch over the years. As the Parliamentary Secretary knows, in other capacities he and I have considered diversification in the iron and steel industry. I do not now propose to elaborate on the arguments there deployed, but this is the fundamental issue between the parties and, because of this, it was only asking for trouble to arrange for the Bill to be brought before the House at a morning sitting.
We are, naturally, grateful to the Postmaster-General for his preliminary statement explaining what the Bill is about, and may I say, on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Mr. David Price)—who apologises very sincerely because he cannot be here this morning—that we accept very readily the right hon. Gentleman's offer of private discussion on the whole question of security and line tapping.
The debate has shown that the anxieties about security are not only those which the right hon. Gentleman had in mind. Outside people tapping lines is one thing, and needs very careful supervision, but what has most concerned my hon. Friends during the debate has been the possibility of the State learning too much that it might misuse, and not giving that security to the users of the proposed service that customers would normally be entitled to expect. That is a different matter, and one that can be discussed when the talks take place.
Let me now deal with what the Bill does—its nature. The Postmaster-General very clearly set this out in moving the Second Reading on 19th April last. As will be seen from col. 502 of the OFFICIAL REPORT, the list contains provision of computer time, provision of data preparation and input facilities, systems analysis service, programming service, facilities for computer to "talk" to computer, "desktop" computer facilities for individuals, and facilities for the establishment of "data banks". These services are all extremely important.
On 6th April, the Postmaster-General said:
I am sure that this new service would meet a widespread need, especially among the smaller business and organisations which are unlikely to be able to justify computers of their own."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th April, 1967; Vol. 744, c. 466.]

Earlier, he had declared that computer usage in this country is less than it should be. We all agree with that statement, but let the right hon. Gentleman "gang" a little warily there. It is very easy for the seller or provider of a service to say that the service is being insufficiently used, but the user or purchaser of that service may have very different views about it.
This is becoming very clear in the collision of opinion that is developing between the American-based and the British-based computer firms. We know that the Americans tend to think big in the size of the computers they install, whereas in this country we tend to the more guarded view that there is, perhaps, a place for smaller computers in greater numbers than have been established in America. Obviously, it will pay the American computer manufacturer to persuade British users that the big computers are the right things to use. Although we too are moving towards the use of big computers, we must be a little wary before accepting the Government's statement that our computer usage is much less than it should be.
That a potential increase is there, no one would deny, but what is the need today? The best figures I have been able to get show that in 1958 we had about 100 installations, and about 1,650 installations by the end of last year. That is an average increase of about 190 computer installations a year. There are those who believe, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh said, that we shall have to step up this increase very considerably above the working party's estimation. I am told that the departmental inquiry into potential increase never consulted any of the major computer manufacturers. It seems astonishing not to have done that. As far as one can make out, there is potential for an additional 2,000 by 1970 which are likely to be wanted over and above the 3,000 referred to by that working party.
Then I must follow up the question which I put to the right hon. Gentleman when he made his first statement on 6th April. On that occasion, I asked him about the spare capacity in the Post Office's own computers. The implication of his answer was that the reason why he was introducing the Bill was not


to make sure that spare capacity was fully taken up. We know now from the answer which he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing (Mr. Higgins), on 13th April, that the total load at present on the six English Electric LEO 326s, the two Elliott 803s, the one Elliott 503, the two National Elliott 405s and the one I.C.T.1201 owned by the Post Office means that only 50 per cent. of their capacity is being used.
That must dictate the question: what were the original assessments both as to usage and as to time scale on the 12 computers already owned by the Post Office, and what is the estimated usage of the six which are now on order and the additional ones which, according to the Postmaster-General, will be purchased if the Bill goes through?
I can understand that there is an imponderable here. The unknown factor is bound to be considerable when investing in computery. But there must be some estimate of the likely time when these computers will become so fully used that there is no spare capacity left, and we ought to have some idea of what is in the minds of the Government when placing these very considerable orders.
We know that the present computers owned by the Post Office have cost £4 million. We are told by the Postmaster-General that the new data service, including the training and bringing into employment of the systems analysts and data processors, will cost about £9 million in addition. However, we should like to know the breakdown of that £9 million and how much of it is going into hardware and how much into software.
Too many people imagine that all that is required for a computer is an enormous box with a lot of wires inside it, and that that is the end of it. However, there are such things as peripherals, as well as the "memory", and the software will probably involve a bigger expenditure than the initial machine. I think that we are entitled to ask for the breakdown of all this.
I have been looking at the financial aspects of the Bill, and it might be worth while to remind the House that it refers to the Post Office Act, 1961, Section 1(3,b) of which sets out the following functions of the Postmaster-General:


"(i) postal matters,
(ii) the remitting of money,
(iii) telegraphs, telephones and … wireless telegraphy, and
(iv) activities carried on by him as an agent (whether for a government department or for any other person whatsoever) ".
Clause 1 of the Bill adds to that list,
(v) the provision of services and facilities for the processing of data by computer.
Under Section 8 of the 1961 Act, the Postmaster-General is able to borrow up to £30 million to meet his obligations and perform his functions. Under Section 10, the aggregate of principal of advances made by the Treasury plus interest on outstanding liabilities shall not exceed £880 million or, with special permission from the House of Commons, £960 million.
Command Paper 3218, published by the Post Office last month, deals with the prospects of the Post Office over the next year or so. I find it extraordinary that there is no mention in that White Paper of this proposed new service. Nor is there any mention of it in the other White Paper, also published last month, dealing with the proposed reorganisation of the Post Office. The Postmaster-General was rather quick off the mark when my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh got on to the financial side of the Bill, and interrupted my hon. Friend to say that, in due course, the Post Office will be reorganised to be an independent Corporation. I want now to ask the right hon. Gentleman one or two questions about the consequences of that.
As we understand this White Paper, telecommunications services alone involved £242 million for investment in fixed assets last year. This year, it is to be £294 million, of which £161 million will be borrowed. The combined postal and telecommunications borrowing in 1965–66 was £95 million. Last year it was £139 million, and this year it will be £178 million. No mention is made of whether that last figure will include the £9 million which the Postmaster-General mentioned during the debate. I must assume that it will be included, because there is no financial Clause in the Bill, nor is there a financial Resolution on the Order Paper. I take it, therefore, that all the expenditure visualised under the Bill is covered by legislation


which is on the Statute Book already. Can the Joint Parliamentary Secretary tell us exactly where this £9 million fits in the finances set out in the White Paper?
As my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Webster) said, one has to recognise, too, that the position of the private bureaux in terms of capital provision is already difficult. When one sees the enormous borrowing powers of the Post Office under the 1961 Act, one realises that the Post Office is in a commanding position with those great borrowing powers.
I notice that, in the course of the debate, we became involved in the Giro system. I do not propose to elaborate on that a great deal, but it would help if the hon. Gentleman could say to what extent we shall see the cost of the Giro system being wrapped up in the £9 million which we are spending in the Post Office on computery. We do not know whether it is a separate expenditure, and we are entitled to know whether we shall see the different expenditures under these headings clearly set out.
I hope that what I am saying will not be taker to be fractious criticism of the work which the Post Office has done. We all recognise that the "Datel" service which is already established has many industrial possibilities that will be of great value and importance to the nation. The question revolves round whether or not we think that it should only be done by the State.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh asked about the Discounted Cash Flow technique which the N.E.D.C. has been thumping so hard as being desirable for Government Departments to adopt for the eventual writing off of the total capital cost of these computers. It is a slightly complicated process, but if hon. Members wish to illuminate their minds on the subject, there is an admirable pamphlet published by N.E.D.C. dealing with investment procedures which explains fully what the process involves. The important thing is that the House should in future he able to see the results of operating this process and we should know what rate of interest—7 per cent. or 8 per cent. we just do not know—should be adopted.
There is one aspect which is of some importance in the context of the Bill. As

I understand, the Post Office will not be paying taxation under its present dispensation, whereas in the D.C.F. calculation it is one of the factors to be brought in. Under the new dispensation, when the Post Office becomes an independent corporation, presumably it will be paying taxation. We would like to be told whether this is so, because it must affect the D.C.F. factor.
I do not wish unduly to prolong my remarks, but I must say a few words about the merits of a national computer grid. On 19th September last year my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr. Hordern) wrote in The Times an article entitled "Catching up with the computer revolution". In it, he said:
There is a real and urgent need to create a national grid based on a central computer system. Firms could plug into the system in the same way as they do with the telephone. Up-to-date information could be made available to them, and to the Government, on which both could base their decisions.
That caused an explosion from the British computer manufacturers, not least from Sir Leon Bagrit, the Chairman of Elliot Automation Ltd. who, in a letter published on 22nd September last, said, inter alia:
Methods of applying computers advantageously are still in an early stage both in the United States and in the United Kingdom. In automation, be it industrial, scientific, or social, problems have to be solved using whatever methods and machines are most suitable and not from the point of view of what an overseas exporter of computers chooses to sell as his most profitable 'line'.'
Mr. Basil de Ferranti, a former Member of Parliament, now Managing-Director of I.C.T., also warned us about the experience of two large American companies which had great difficulty with large computers, and Mr. W. E. Scott, the Managing-Director of English Electric-Leo-Marconi Computers proclaimed that the English Electric System, which the Post Office has taken up, known as the System 4–75 computer, had not been introduced by the time the Flowers Committee made its Report on the installation of big computers. He seemed to be arguing that the British industry had done a wonderful job against very keen American competition without resort to these vast computers.
In the Electronics Weekly of 29th March this year it is reported that I.B.M. have stopped the production of 360–90s


and I know that another big computer, the C.D.C. 6600 is also running into difficulties. There was a time when the view put forward by Mr. Herb Grosch was seldom questioned. This was that as the price of a computer doubled so the work load it would handle went up four times. This theory is now being questioned very closely. Dr. Donald Michie, of the Department of Machine Intelligence and Perception at Edinburgh University, is leading a team to produce a computer for about £60,000, as opposed to one costing several hundred thousand pounds, such a machine being suitable for almost any medical research or bio-medical laboratories. We are still in a state of flux, and I think that it is dangerous to plump for one type only. I know that the hon. Gentleman is anxious about the time. So am I, but I must say a word about the rôle of the Post Office in the computer field.
I suggest that the rôle for the Post Office at this stage is to do what it can to help all the other Government Departments which have computers to make sure that there is as much rationalisation as possible and the minimum of spare capacity, and that until we are certain that the Government's own employment of computers has been perfected to the limits possible, the Post Office ought to be very careful before it starts moving into a field where the independent bureau is already establishing itself. It may be that the Post Office will have to move in in the end, but it is a pity that we did not have a White Paper and a full debate on the whole principle. We know from an article by Mr. J. J. Adler of the G.P.O. in the Special Supplement of the Financial Times, in September, 1965, that the Post Office has been thinking along the lines of a national grid. It may be that one day we shall have to have one run by the Post Office, but we do not know at this stage whether this is the right answer. I think that every speech in this debate has shown that hon. Members are uncertain. In view of the way the debate had gone I feel that the only thing the Opposition ought to do is vote against the Bill. I do not know whether this is what we shall do eventually, but I am waiting with great interest to hear what the hon. Gentleman

has to say, and I am sorry to have left him only a quarter of an hour in which to say it.

12.16 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology (Dr. Jeremy Bray): I agree with the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) that this has been a valuable debate, and one which will not be the last on this subject. A number of important questions have been raised, and I shall do my best to reply to them.
The case for a National Data Processing Service rests on two considerations. First, the economies of scale, and, secondly, the need for inter-communication between sources and users of information and between data processing systems. One can ask how far these considerations have been reflected in the experience of the Post Office to date. The Post Office has always operated on the principle of buying large computers on a cost-performance basis and loading them up out of a continuing stream of new applications, rather than buying an ad hoc computer for each new application as it comes along.
We can look at the experience of the Post Office to see how far this has paid off. The hon. Member for Eastleigh (Mr. David Price) and many others asked for the economic justification for the use of computers in the Post Office. In common with other public investment projects, every Post Office computer project is expected to show at least an 8 per cent. rate on a D.C.F. basis. In calculating this the costs of planning, conversion and all the capital and running costs of computer time allocated to the project on an hourly basis are taken into account.
Computers are written off normally over 10 years. It may be said that in a field where obsolescence is as rapid as it is with computers 10 years is an unrealistic period. But this is not necessarily the case. The Post Office has two fully loaded computers which have run for eight years and which, although undoubtedly obsolescent, so that they would never be bought today, are still making rather better than the originally calculated return. The Post Office would not, of course, rule out replacing computers performing a given task in less than 10 years, but if it were to do so it would want to establish that it was


cheaper to do so taking into account all the costs involved, including the changeover costs, and also including consideration of the fact that the personnel needed to effect the changeover might be more profitably employed on a new application rather than on revamping an old one.
For the future, the Post Office expects fully to load with its own work 20 large computers costing £0·6 million each, or of that rough scale, and connected by data links by 1971. National data processing service or not, that network will exist. My right hon. Friend mentioned that at present the load on Post Office computers is about 50 per cent. of capacity. This is no more than usual practice in a large data processing organisation. Provision has to be made, first, for the build-up of future work on existing machines. It is expected that with currently planned applications within the Post Office the full existing capacity will be taken up within 18 months if no further provision is made.
It is necessary always to provide capacity to cover the risk of breakdowns—to cover the fact that the loading is uneven and to enable it to meet a certain amount of peak demand and, finally, to provide for uncertainty—in planning future applications—in that one can never tell exactly how long a programme will take to run on particular applications, if only because we do not know the error rates of data fed into the new application.
This is a quite typical situation and the Post Office, in line with other major bureaux and private users, has established a satisfactory level of capacity working. Opening the network to all corners means that the non-Post Office load can be built up almost without risk, because anything which might be done to cater for expected non-Post Office users could be put to Post Office use if, in the event, expected demand from the outside did not materialise.
Hon. Members have asked for a breakdown of the £9 million to be spent over the next five years, as quoted by my right hon. Friend. This is necessarily a very provisional estimate of the sum that could be spent on the early stages of the development of the national data processing service. It includes £3 million for staff over the next five years and £6 million for equipment. This is in addi-

tion to the 20 large computers which are required for the Post Office network up to 1971. In other terms, this £9 million would represent an experienced staff of 500 systems analysts and programmers and ten large computers which, added to the Post Office's own requirement, would mean a network of 30 large machines with 1,000 software staff by 1971.
I now take up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Dobson). The Postmaster-General is obliged to my hon. Friend for his reference to the possibilities of recruiting and training within the Post Office itself. This is our present policy, and of the 450 people already employed in the Post Office on data processing work, all except a small handful have been trained within the Post Office. The national data processing service will require experts in particular fields in which it operates and some, no doubt, will be recruited from outside while others will be trained from staff recruited from within the Post Office.
Many hon. Members have asked about the keeping of accounts. The national data processing service will be set up separately, on a separate accounting basis, and will have its own accounts, which will be published. It will serve some of the biggest single users of computers in the country, including the other Post Office Departments. As my right hon. Friend has said, the scale of charges could well be the same for all users, be they Government Departments or commercial users. What now, for convenience, is called spare Post Office capacity —it is only temporarily unoccupied, in the building up of the load, as a safety margin—will become national data processing capacity along with the existing Post Office capacity, and will be sold at standard rates.
I have been asked questions about priority in the use of time of computers. It is the intention that the question will be regulated by good old commercial principles, with extra charges for peak hour use and for priorities. There will be different degrees of priority, and the rates will be different for each degree of priority. The "mix" of the load at a particular installation will take account of the contractual obligations, and the network allows an emergency to be much better handled than in a single bureau.


There will be the same priorities in the handling of an emergency as in the handling of an ordinary operation.
Then there is the question of finance. The borrowing powers of the Post Office cover the financial requirements of the national data processing service, which are small in relation to the total Post Office requirements for the next five years. The tax position of the Post Office will be the same as that of any other corporation. At present, it makes a payment in lieu of tax, but when separately set up as a corporation the position will be different. It will be liable to Corporation Tax in the same way as any other corporation. It will receive investment grants and contributions on the same basis, and be liable to Selective Employment Tax in respect of any activity in which it competes with other S.E.T. payers.
Then comes the question of the effect on private bureaux. It is significant that since my right hon. Friend's statement to the House on 6th April the Post Office has had many inquiries from bureaux, all of which welcome my right hon. Friend's initiative and would like to explore the larger possibilities which the national data processing service seems to offer their own business.
The suggestion has been made that the Post Office should concentrate on telecommunications. The first priority is to make good the current deficiencies in the telecommunications services arising from the very rapid and welcome growth in demand, which hon. Members opposite failed to foresee and to provide for in time. My right hon. Friend is doing this to the limit of the capacity of the supplying industries—for example, as many trunk circuits will be added over the next five years as have been added since the turn of the century. Provided the supplying industries can produce the plant, expansion on this scale will remove the problem of congestion and waiting lists during the next two or three years. Now is the time to prepare for new developments.
The interesting article referred to by the hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. David Howell), by Mr. Nigel Calder, suggested that in five years' time people would be complaining about the lack of

provision of computer capacity in the national data processing service to enable people to complete their requirements and be able to compete with others already using the service. We are foreseeing future developments in the right way.
The suggestion has been made that the Post Office should stick to telecommunications only. I welcome the enthusiasm of the hon. Member for Eastleigh for digital transmission systems. Undoubtedly, this is the direction of future development, but in such a system as this it is difficult to say where the computer ends and the transmission line begins. With the digital system the message is packaged and sent out by the computer. It then passes to another computer and finally to the end terminal, without having established a clear line to the other terminal, possibly picking up information from a data bank on the way. Where does the computer end and the line begin? It seems that a national data processing service is technically the right answer.
Certainly, on the question of standards, which has been emphasised by many hon. Members, the national data processing service itself can be a major influence towards the achievement of proper standards, which are so important.
On the question of confidentiality, my right hon. Friend assured the House that the Post Office will maintain the same deserved reputation concerning the strictest observance of the confidentiality of information entrusted to it.
On wider social questions, there are considerable uncertainties as to what they are. It is not a question of locking up information, but of providing the right kind of access to it. No doubt many hon. Members have had constituents who have wanted to know what information Government Departments have about themselves, and have found this has been denied them. That is one reason why we have the Parliamentary Commissioner. The condition upon which God has given liberty to man is eternal vigilance. I trust that the House will continue to exercise this vigilance not only in the discussion of the future stages of the Bill, but also in the surveillance of the system as it is discussed and developed technically.
Hon. Members have mentioned the Select Committee on Science and Technology. This may well be a useful channel. I hope that hon. Members will agree that the Bill, with its many interesting possibilities, should be given a Second Reading.

12.28 p.m.

Mr. Marcus Kimball: After what amounts to virtually two long days of debate, the hon. Member has not dealt with the problem of Hull, which is still allowed to have a private enterprise telephone exchange. Will the eventual basic computer services be available to subscribers to a telephone exchange in Hull?
The right hon. Gentleman has also failed to deal with the points raised by my hon. Friend for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) about the purchase of Post Office equipment. I understand that there is a ruling that—

It being half-past Twelve o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed Tomorrow.

INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Fitch.]

12.30 p.m.

Mr. Peter Archer: When hon. Members have the opportunity which I have today, the proceedings are frequently watched by numerous people who know that their lives will be immediately affected by the result. If any benefit emerges from today's debate, however, the chief beneficiaries will never know, because it will be reflected in accidents which do not happen, in limbs which are not amputated and in families which are not orphaned.
One of the difficulties in discussing this problem is that we are always talking about the misfortunes of someone else, and never ourselves, until it has already happened to us and it is too late. But in the coldest economic terms, it has been estimated that the cost of the loss of working time through industrial accidents, the cost of medical attention, the damage to machinery and the general disruption is about £300 million a year. Of

course, the cost in human suffering is infinitely greater. In 1962, 190,000 people were injured in British factories; in 1963, 204,000; in 1964, 269,000; in 1965, 293,000.
This is an increasing problem, but we still do not know its extent, because these figures represent only reported accidents. They do not account for those which did not have to be reported because they resulted in absences, if at all, of fewer than three days, or those which, at the time, appeared to be of no consequence but gave rise to grave consequences only later, or of course, those which, although they should have been reported, were not.
All we know of those is that, in 1962, the Factory Inspectorate was enterprising enough to compare the accidents reported with claims for industrial injury benefit. It was discovered that only 60 per cent. of the accidents in factories which should have been reported were reported. In 1964, after an intensive campaign on the subject, the percentage admittedly rose to 70 per cent. and there is some reason to think that it may since have increased further, but even now there must be many reportable accidents of which we do not know.
These figures, of course, deal only with accidents in factories and say nothing of injuries in mines and quarries, in transport, on farms and building sites. Every year, about 890,000 people are injured in Britain's industry, about three times the number of road casualties, and of these industrial accidents about 2,000 are fatal.
Statistics usually tell a fairly cold and objective story, but perhaps I might be permitted to quote one more comparison. During the last war, the monthly average of casualties on the battlefields was 10,700. The monthly average of casualties in Britain's factories during the same period was 22,000. This is the extent of the problem.
I accept that the increase, year by year, could be attributable to a number of factors, perhaps to the fact that we are dealing with faster and more complicated processes, bigger and more difficult machines, and more and more mechanical, repetitive, hypnotic jobs. It may be thought that this only serves to emphasise that, with all these factors, the need to take the problem seriously is increasing.
May I turn to the existing provisions to draw people's attention to the need to reduce these accidents? The first is that the employer who fails to take reasonable care for the safety of his employee is liable to a civil action for damages at common law. But that is a risk against which he can insure. If the rules of order permitted, on some other occasion the House might care to consider whether this could be made a compulsory provision. Within the rules of order, I can only wish. The sanctions under this head, however, never can be more than an increased insurance premium. It may be worth the risk to an employer to push production along a little faster than is safe.
Secondly, numerous provisions are imposed by Statute, and this is one of my complaints. Perhaps they are too numerous. At present, safety legislation is a hotch-potch of miscellaneous powers which have grown up industry by industry and process by process, as there has been a campaign in one industry or a particular great disaster has stirred the public conscience in another, or the relations between management and employees have varied from time to time elsewhere, or an industry's profits have increased or decreased, or as a particular individual like Samuel Plimsoll has arisen to take up a particular campaign.
The result is that a woman working a bacon-slicing machine in a factory canteen is protected by provisions which are denied to the same woman working the same machine in a shop or hospital kitchen. A man on a ladder repainting a ceiling is denied the protection of provisions which would protect the same man on the same ladder if he were painting the ceiling for the first time while the house was being built. Also, an employer has a very different and very much decreased duty of care for the safety of a labour-only sub-contractor, although he is doing the same job in the same way and receiving the same money, than if the employer were stamping his National Insurance Card and paying his Selective Employment Tax.
The House may think that what matters when a man or woman is exposed to danger is not where it takes place or the purpose of the operation or the terms of remuneration, but the nature and extent of the danger.
It would be surprising if, with such a miscellany of provisions, there were any unified policy for enforcing them. The responsibility for enforcement is divided among at least five Departments. In factories, it is the responsibility of the Minister of Labour, in mines and quarries of the Minister of Power, on farms of the Minister of Agriculture, on ships, railways, in the air and on the roads, of the Minister of Transport, and risks relating to explosives and fires are the responsibility of the Home Secretary.
I fully accept that the various inspectors may require different qualifications, but one would have thought that the problems had sufficient in common to justify at least a common policy. My hon. Friend may be able to tell us what is done to bring together the policies of enforcement. Certainly, one wonders what is being done to produce a common approach to the problem of when to prosecute. The Royal Commission on Safety in Mines in 1938 said that there were fewer prosecutions in coal mines than in factories. If that is still true, it may be because it is only for infringement in mines that a prosecution might result in imprisonment. Anywhere else, the maximum sanction is a fine. Perhaps that is another matter to which my hon. Friend could refer.
My hon. Friend the Member for Consett (Mr. David Watkins) on 10th April drew attention to the fact that one who caused death by dangerous driving might be sentenced to a maximum of five years' imprisonment, although anyone who causes death by flagrant disregard of the Factories Acts may be subjected, at most, to a fine of £300.
None of this is intended to imply any criticism of the inspectorates. As a body, they are doing as much as any undermanned service could do faced with such enormous problems, and most of them are dedicated to their work. To suggest one method of improving the way in which they operate—although this may depend on implementing their resources—I believe that something could be done to make the inspectors more approachable in the eyes of employees. I have no doubt that if an employee approached an inspector, his complaints or suggestions would be listened to with interest. However, employees are not encouraged to think of inspectors as people with whom


they can discuss these matters. Perhaps, when an inspector considers it necessary be accompanied on inspections by a representative of the management, he should invite representatives of the employees to go round as well. Certainly a copy of the inspector's report should be either presented or made available to representatives of the employees.
The third set of provisions which exist today are those relating to safety officers. However, there is no greater consistency here. Under the Factories Act there is no obligation to appoint a safety officer. Under some of the regulations made under that Act there is such an obligation, but the appointment rests with the management. There is nothing to specify the officer's competence, age, training, physical capacity or tenure of office. He may be an energetic, capable and dedicated man, as many of these officers are, or he may be given the job because it has transpired that he is not capable of doing the work of a night watchman. He can be dismissed at the pleasure of the management. He may be dismissed because he does not do his job properly or because he does it too enthusiastically.
In the mines, the right of appointment of a safety officer rests with the employees. On the railways there is no obligation for anyone to appoint a safety officer, End it appears that in the docks there is an obligation on employees to appoint one, but subject to the veto of the chief inspector.
The fourth set of provisions which exist today are those relating to workplace safety committees. Although I use the phrase "which exist today", those which do exist are purely voluntary because there is no statutory obligation on anyone to appoint such a committee. In many workplaces there are such committees, but their success cannot easily be estimated because, as I was informed by my hon. Friend on 10th April, no statistics exist to compare their achievements with those of workplaces where they do not exist. In many places there is good will and genuine concern, and in many instances the number of accidents appears to have been reduced. In some cases the committees have been working in happy harmony with the inspectorate. However, nobody is under an obligation to listen to a word of what these committees say, and while in the best work-

shops nothing may turn on this, in many others it is absolutely fatal.
I believe that industrial accidents occur not because people are prepared, in cold blood, to see themselves or their fellow men going through life with one arm, one eye or in constant pain—or because industrial widows and orphans are matters of indifference—but because there is a repetitive process to be performed or work must be turned out in a hurry, and there is not time, or somebody is too tired, to take the obvious precautions. There is no coldblooded weighing of the saving involved as against the cost of spending 40 years in a wheelchair. In too many cases one tends to take the view, "We will do it this once. It cannot possibly happen here".
The time available to me in this short debate does not allow me to give many examples. I will merely mention the case of a maintenance engineer who was repairing a machine driven by two electric motors. Each motor was fitted with a device which ensured that when anything was caught in the drum, the machine automatically stopped, because its power supply was disconnected. Unfortunately, the safety device on one of the motors had not been connected—somebody had not got round to connecting it—but because the device was fitted, the engineer did not take the trouble to ensure that the drum was not still revolving. He placed his arm inside, the safety device did not operate, and his arm was torn off.
I am, of course, relating a gloomy story. However, it is not a matter of unrelieved gloom. The Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories for 1965 presented one or two happier sides to the picture. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents has established seven regional industrial safety officers and the Government have provided half of the approved expenditure. To encourage the safety element in industrial design, the Royal Society of Arts has undertaken a number of projects to which the Government have contributed £2,000. The National Institute of Industrial Psychology is at present engaged in a number of studies into the fundamental causes of accidents. One of the happiest examples came from a London factory in which, in 1965, there was an intensive campaign into industrial safety which


included a competition for spotting the causes of accidents and suggesting remedies. The winners received a prize of a week-end for two in Paris.
The fact remains that 890,000 people in this country who do not yet know what will happen to them are likely to be injured in their employment before they are a year older. I say at once that my right hon. Friend the Minister and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary have given a great deal of thought and care to this problem and that, in these remarks, I am not implying any criticism of them. I hope that my hon. Friend will tell me what so far has been the result of their deliberations.
In this connection, I draw attention to two resolutions which have resulted from a great deal of discussion on the part of the Trades Union Congress in the last few years. In 1964 the T.U.C. passed a resolution calling for the compulsory election of safety delegates, with powers of inspection, and the compulsory setting up of safety committees in factories.
I understand that my right hon. Friend is prepared to give what is usually known as the voluntary system one further chance. Perhaps I may be forgiven for having some reservations about the wisdom of doing this. A similar scheme was proposed in 1927 and the voluntary system was then given one more chance. Never in industrial history has so extensive a chance been so completely frittered away with such tragic results. In 1965 the T.U.C. passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a centralised authority, including workers and employees' representatives, with power to direct and co-ordinate accident prevention and health protection in all spheres of employment to
… provide for workplace safety organisation with workers' participation;
(c) organise, co-ordinate and extend research into problems of industrial accident prevention and ill-health;
(d) organise, co-ordinate and extend education and propaganda for industrial safety and health, particularly amongst young people.
I understand that that has been considered sympathetically by my right hon. Friend, but I understand that there are differences between us about its possible composition. But some body, in whatever way it is composed, could under-

take the task of surveying this enormous problem—and the plethora of unrelated and sometimes frankly contradictory provisions which exist—with the aim of reducing accidents. If a central uthority were to view this whole matter it could not, at the worst, increase the problem. It could conceivably do a lot to improve it.

12.50 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. E. Fernyhough): Since coming to the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Rowley Regis and Tipton (Mr. Archer) has demonstrated his deep, intense and abiding interest in accident prevention. I was speaking to him in the Chamber a few moments ago when I learned for the first time that he had mining experience. I, too, have had a little and his experience and mine have made it a subject with which we are both deeply and intensely concerned.
I do not have time to detail it, but if anybody has a family interest in this subject which is greater than mine, his family has had more than its share of the maimed and the crippled. There is no quarrel between my hon. Friend and me about the enormity of the problem. There is no quarrel between us about the need to do something effectively to reduce the tremendous and increasing accident rate and the number of fatalities.
It is remarkable that, although for several of the post-war years the figures tended to go down, from 1948 we have had this tragic increase. I readily agree with my hon. Friend that when the reports are published they are merely statistics and that he and I know what they mean in human suffering and human sorrow to those whose families are affected. The cost has been estimated at £300 million a year and we know, if we could reduce and even eliminate this number of accidents, what the country could do with that £300 million which would then become available.
The unifying machinery which my hon. Friend wants to be brought into being would be difficult to operate. There is a distinct difference between the kinds of accidents which occur in the mines, in factories and on farms. If we had a central body such as that which my hon. Friend suggests, we would still have to


have different kinds of personnel, because it would be impossible to recruit the necessary manpower with all the ramifications of all the industries which my hon Friend has mentioned.
The Factory Inspectorate is already under strength. This is not because the Government are not anxious to bring it up to strength. It is because as yet the necessary numbers with the necessary qualifications are not coming forward to bring it up to strength. There is no lack on the Ministry's part to provide the necessary funds for that increase in what I would term the Civil Service if the right people became available.
I know that my hon. Frend's view about penalties is shared by many who feel that, if the penalties were increased, employers and their insurance companies would be a little more enthusiastic and would take greater pains to prevent accidents. However, as my hon. Friend knows it the last Factories Act we trebled the penalties. It is strange that although the penalties have been trebled, the accident rate has gone up. Increased penalties did not prove to be the deterrent which we hoped they would be. Personally, I do not believe that that is the right way to go about it.

Mr. Archer: The amounts of the fines were increased. The suggestion is that disregarding some of the provisions of the Factories Acts, as is the case with disregarding some of the provisions of the Road Traffic Acts, might be a matter for imprisonment.

Mr. Fernyhough: In a discussion of this kind, I am not in a position this morning to say what provisions may be contained in any new legislation, whenever it may be introduced, but my hon. Friend can rest assured that what he and many others have had to say will be borne in mind when any changes in the present Acts and their accompanying regulations are introduced.
I readily acknowledge that the quality of safety officers varies. Some are dedicated and some have been trained, while in other cases the management is indifferent and does not take too much trouble about qualifications, provided

that someone has the appropriate designation. The Ministry, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and, of course, the organisations which my hon. Friend mentioned all want competent people to do the job. There is a difference of opinion about safety committees. I readily acknowledge that since 1964 the Trades Union Congress has felt that such committees should he compulsory. However, so far my right hon. Friend has taken the side of the C.B.I., in the sense that he feels that it might be better to start on a voluntary basis before considering compulsion.
I give my hon. Friend the assurance that my right hon. Friend's patience is not unlimited. If, as a consequence of the survey now being undertaken, and of the further steps being taken, it is found that the voluntary system is not achieving the results which all concerned with the problem are anxious to bring about, then the Minister will not hesitate, when the next Factories Bill is introduced to take the measures which my hon. Friend would have us take.
There was only one comment in my hon. Friend's speech with which I disagree. Perhaps, on reflection, he will accept that the analogy was not quite fair. He said that in the last war daily casualties numbered 10,000, while in industry there were 22,000 every day. There have always been many more people engaged in industry than there were in the Armed Forces, even at the peak of the war. While I would not wish to minimise the problem or in any way detract from its importance, I am sure that my hon. Friend will accept that that was not the kind of fair comment which he usually makes.
We in the Ministry are as concerned as he is about this problem. Most people are. Anything which the Ministry can do to improve the figures and reduce the accident rate and the suffering and to make available to the people the wealth which would be created as a consequence, we shall certainly do.

Debate having been concluded, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER suspended the Sitting till half-past Two o'clock, pursuant to Order.

Sitting resumed at 2.30 p.m.

Oral Answers to Questions — PUBLIC BUILDING AND WORKS

Building and Construction Industry (Research)

Mr. Chichester-Clark: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works whether he will make a statement on the future of Government-sponsored research and development in the building and construction industry.

The Minister of Public Building and Works (Mr. Reg Prentice): I would refer the hon. Member to the reply which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister gave to the hon. Member for Bethnal Green (Mr. Hilton) on 20th April. I am considering what further arrangements are desirable to assist me in discharging my responsibilities for research and development and I will make a statement as soon as possible—[Vol. 745, c. 153.]

Mr. Chichester-Clark: Now that the Minister has acquired the B.R.S. can we be certain that his influence in the Government is strong enough to see that it will not ultimately be swallowed by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government and that the industry's confidence in it will not be whittled away and finally destroyed as happened in the lamentable case in the N.B.A?

Mr. Prentice: I think the hon. Member is misinformed about the N.B.A. The B.R.S. should be responsible in a Ministerial sense to me. I have to work out arrangements consequent on that and also arrangements to promote co-ordination.

Government Offices, Horseferry Road Site

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works if he will state the extent of the delay, and consequent cost, in the Horseferry Road site for offices for the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Housing and Local Government.

Mr. Prentice: I cannot assess the extent of the delay or consequent cost until work on the main contract, which stopped last November, is resumed.

Mr. Dalyell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that those of us who pass this site in London every day are becoming increasingly worried about the general cost of such delays? Can he make an urgent assessment of what is becoming a very serious matter indeed?

Mr. Prentice: I have been concerned and worried about this for some months but, as my hon. Friend is aware, a few days ago my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour announced that he would appoint a court of inquiry into this dispute and also into a similar one on the Barbican site.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: Is there any indication of when that inquiry might report?

Mr. Prentice: No. The announcement was made only at the end of last week and the terms of reference have not yet been settled.

District Heating Schemes

Mr. Lubbock: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what information he has about the relative capital, operating and total costs of district heating schemes and the comparative figures for conventional methods.

Mr. Prentice: The capital costs of district heating schemes are generally higher than those of conventional schemes but operating costs tend to be lower, although the exact relationship is bound to vary with the circumstances.

Mr. Lubbock: Is the Minister aware that, according to figures which I have been given of total costs, capital and operating, of district heating schemes, they amount to only about 60 per cent. of comparable conventional schemes? Will he tell the House whether there is not a possibility that under the new cost yardsticks to be introduced by the Housing Subsidies Act, local authorities will be prohibited from taking contracts for district heating schemes?

Mr. Prentice: The 60 per cent. figure is likely to vary according to the size and density of buildings, the number to the acre and things like that. Regarding charges to local authorities I shall write to the hon. Member or consult my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and


Local Government if that is more appropriate.

Mr. Costain: Does not the Minister think that if power stations water can be utilised, it is good sense to use this waste heat for district heating schemes?

Mr. Prentice: Yes, when waste heat is available it is a good idea to use district heating. The Ministry is doing this in Aldershot, at Fylingdales Early Warning Station and at other premises.

Building Research Station

Mrs. Renée Short: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works (1) what additional restrictions will apply to members of the staff of the Building Research Station following the transfer of this establishment from the Ministry of Technology to his Department;
(2) what proposals he has to ensure the continuation of the confidence built up over the years between the Building Research Station and the construction industry, based upon the independent and unbiased status generally accorded to the station.

Mr. Prentice: In the next few weeks I shall consider the detailed arrangements in consultation with the Director of the station. There is absolutely no reason to suggest that the change will diminish the independence of the station or the confidence placed in it by the industry. No additional restrictions will be placed on the stiff of the station following the transfer.

Mrs. Short: In view of the concern felt in t he Department about the transfer, will my right hon. Friend assure the House, first, about the freedom of publication of the station and also about the dangers that there may be that the staff will be subject to additional restrictions because of defence commitments? On Question No. 10, in order to preserve this independence, which is of very great value, will my right hon. Friend ensure that the Director of the Building Research Station reports directly to him and not through any intermediary?

Mr. Prentice: I thought that in my original reply I gave a general assurance about the independence of the station. The Prime Minister said last week:

The arrangements will maintain the scientific integrity of the station's work and its close links with the building industry."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th April, 1967; Vol. 745, c. 153]
I attach great importance to that. The Director will have close contact with me and also I hope with a number of officials in the Department. The exact details are still to be worked out.

Mr. Costain: Is the Minister aware that the husband of the hon. Lady the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Renée Short) is a respected member of this Department and therefore she knows very well what she is talking about'?

Mr. Prentice: I am sure that in this House my hon. Friend addresses herself to the public interest in this matter just as any other hon. Member would do.

Building Control Act, 1966

Mr. Eyre: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works whether he will now make a statement on the operation of the Building Control Act, 1966.

Mr. Prentice: Yes, Sir. In the period from the enactment of the Building Control Act to the 31st March, 1967, 488 projects with a total value of £99–4 million have been licensed and 125 projects with a total value of £20 million have been refused.
With permission, I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT a statement giving details broken down into regions and categories of work.

Mr. Eyre: I thank the Minister for that reply. Is he aware that the House is waiting for precise details of licences refused, for example, for bingo halls, and it is hoped that they will be in the OFFICIAL REPORT? The House would also like to have details in that connection about the number of extra houses claimed to have been built as a result of this licensing, if the Minister is still under that delusion?

Mr. Prentice: There is no delusion about this. The need for this type of control was explained to the House and was accepted by the majority of the House when the Act was passed. We have had no applications for bingo halls, but we have turned down a proposed night club in Hull, an actors' club in


Piccadilly, a racecourse stand at Plumpton, cinema alterations in Leicester Square and a number of similar projects. I am sure hon. Members would agree that these are less essential than other projects which should go ahead.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Can the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that the operation of the Act has resulted in a real shift away from what the Prime Minister calls the "dolce vita society" to the building of homes and other socially desirable buildings?

BUILDING CONTROL ACT, 1966


ANALYSES OF APPLICATIONS DETERMINED SINCE ENACTMENT AT 31ST MARCH, 1967


Category

Authorised
Refused
Total




Number
Value(£m.)
Number
Value(£m.)
Number
Value(£m.)


(a) By categories of work









New Housing
…
23
6·2
—
—
23
6·2


Industrial
…
100
22·7
16
2·8
116
25·5


Offices
…
102
16·7
37
6·8
139
23·5


Shops
…
102
19·5
44
7·3
146
26·8


Entertainment
…
44
6·0
23
2·5
67
8·5


Garages
…
15
5·4
5
0·6
20
6·0


Schools and Colleges
…
28
5·7
—
—
28
5·7


Miscellaneous
…
74
17·2
—
—
74
17·2


TOTALS
…
488
99·4
125
20·0
613
119·4


(b) By area









North
…
—
—
—
—
—
—


Yorks and Humberside
…
47
9·8
11
2·6
58
12·4


East Midland
…
28
6·0
8
1·0
36
7·0


East Anglia
…
22
5·3
3
0·5
25
5·8


South East









(1) London
…
108
24·7
22
2·9
130
27·6.


(2) Eastern Counties
…
32
6·2
9
1·6
41
7·8


(3) Southern Counties
…
48
9·2
9
0·9
57
101


(4) South Eastern Counties
…
38
7·3
16
3·2
54
10·5


SouthWest
…
37
5·4
8
1·5
45
6·9


Wales
…
13
3·2
1
0·1
14
3·3


West Midland
…
49
10·8
22
2·8
71
13·6


North west
…
49
9·7
16
2·9
65
12·6


Scotland
…
17
1·8
—
—
17
1·8


TOTALS
…
488
99·4
125
20·0
613
119·4


Notes:


1. Housing and Industrial schemes, which include more than the specified limit of non-housing and non-industrial accommodation, are licensable and are shown above.


2. The Northern Region, being wholly a Development Area, is exempt from building control.

Selective Employment Tax

Mr. Pym: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what representations he has received from the building industry about the relationship of the Selective Employment Tax and the growth of self-employment in the industry; and what reply he has sent.

Mr. Prentice: Some of the representations made to me about Selective

Mr. Prentice: The operation of the Act coincided with the beginning of the squeeze period last July, and the Act has played a part in reducing the overheating of the economy necessary because of the economic situation last summer. The ultimate effect of the Act must be judged in the longer term when there is no longer the possibility of overheating of the economy and resources are made available for housing and other needed projects.

Following are the details:

Employment Tax have suggested that it would stimulate self-employment.

Mr. Pym: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that one of the most absurd and undesirable effects of S.E.T. has been to encourage contractors to move into the field of self-employment? Do not the Government think that this tendency has been made very much worse by the imposition of this iniquitous tax?

Mr. Prentice: I do not think I would use the term "very much worse", for self-employment existed in some undesirable forms before the tax was introduced. For a number of reasons, the cost of employing people has been increased by such things as higher insurance contributions, redundancy payments and the training levy which were accepted on both sides as desirable. It is very difficult to separate the effect of these from S.E.T.

Mr. Channon: Would the right hon. Gentleman agree that the introduction of S.E.T. has actually encouraged self-employment in the building industry? Is this Government policy?

Mr. Prentice: It has increased the cost of employing a man and that of itself would increase self-employment, but certainly there were other reasons for introducing S.E.T. and these have been explained often enough.

Building Industry (Output and Profit)

Mr. More: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what discussions he is having with representatives of the building industry regarding output and profit.

Mr. Prentice: I have frequent discussions with representatives of the building industry on the improvement of output and efficiency.

Mr. More: Would the Minister be willing to estimate what would be the share of the building industry in the Prime Minister's national dividend?

Mr. Prentice: No, Sir, not without notice.

Construction Industry (Productivity)

Mr. More: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works whether he will make a statement on the increase of productivity in the construction industry which has taken place solely as a result of the combined effect of the Building Control Act, 1966, and the Selective Employment Tax.

Mr. Prentice: It is not possible to identify increases in productivity due solely to Selective Employment Tax.

Building licensing is not primarily intended to increase productivity but to ensure that resources are used for purposes which are socially and economically desirable.

Mr. More: Is it not clear that these two measures have brought about no good in the building industry and that the sooner they are abolished the sooner we shall have a programme which can really measure up to the industry's capacity?

Mr. Prentice: The answer to both parts of that question is, "No, Sir".

Mr. Biggs-Davison: If the Minister really wants to get output up, should he not swallow his doctrinaire prejudice and see that there is fair competition for contracts between private and public enterprise?

Mr. Prentice: I am all in favour of fair competition for contracts between public and private enterprise. I was not aware that this view was shared on the other side of the House, where there has been a lot of sniping at the direct labour departments of local authorities.

Mr. Maxwell: What increases in productivity does my right hon. Friend expect from the implementation of the Industrial Training Act? Would he agree that the sole reason for the very low productivity of the industry is that members of the Conservative Administration did nothing to encourage the industry to invest in training facilities?

Mr. Prentice: I would agree with what my hon. Friend has said. Improvements in the quality and quantity of training are the most important contributions that can be made to productivity. This is why I and every member of the Government attach great importance to the operation of the training boards.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: Does not the judgment of the Minister's predecessor in office as to the operation of these two measures together, namely, that they were bereft of reason when operating together, seem very apt in retrospect? Why does not the Minister make more efforts to get the S.E.T. removed from the construction industry?

Mr. Prentice: The hon. Gentleman is taking my right hon. Friend's remarks


out of context. They should be studied in the context of the speeches in which they were made.

Buckingham Palace Garden Wall (Plants)

Mr. Tilney: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works why he has advised Westminster City Council against the planting of climbers up the wall around the Buckingham Palace Garden in Grosvenor Place.

Mr. Prentice: In the course of exchanges of view with the Council, we have raised objection to any type of plant which would damage the fabric of the wall; we have also relayed the anxiety of the police at the possible security risk. But I feel that these difficulties might well be overcome and I am arranging fresh discussions between the parties concerned.

Mr. Tilney: I am delighted with that remark, but would the Minister bear in mind that there are many creepers and prickly roses which cannot possibly bear the weight of a juvenile and that, if anyone wants to get over the wall, much the easiest way is to bring a rope ladder and a hook?

Mr. Prentice: I have some sympathy with that point of view. That is the sort of thing to be ironed out in the discussions I hope to initiate.

Metric Measurements

Mr. Chichester-Clark: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what representations he has received from the building industry regarding the cost of the change to metric measurements; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Prentice: No representations on the cost of the change have been made to me. When preparing the timetable for the change, the B.S.I. sought comments from the industry but only a few of these indicated concern about cost.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: I welcome the switch to metric, but would not the Minister agree to give some consideration to some kind of financial assistance being given to the industry and to related pro-

fessions, in the same way as the Chancellor is doing over decimalisation?

Mr. Prentice: The Government are making a grant to B.S.I. for the administrative costs of the change-over, as they are to other industries. We do not contemplate direct financial help to firms. I should have thought that it was generally recognised, and is recognised in the building industry, that this will bring great benefits in the form of greater efficiency and productivity. It is a very important step forward. It will pay the firms concerned, certainly in the long run, over and over again.

Mr. Lubbock: Is the Minister aware that his Department, with its immense purchasing power, can take the lead here? What is he doing to introduce the metric system in the houses that he purchases for occupation by Service families at the earliest possible moment?

Mr. Prentice: I think I can say with due modesty that we have been taking a lead. The construction industry is the first industry to publish its programme. This is due both to people in my Department and to leading figures in the industry who have been involved with the B.S.I. committees in working out the programme. We shall certainly give a lead in terms of the programme the hon. Gentleman mentioned and, indeed, in all public programmes. The Government as a whole, in all their building programmes, will be adhering to this timetable, and we shall call on everyone else to do the same.

Labour-only Sub-contracting

Mr. Murton: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works whether he intends to instruct his Department to present written evidence to the Phelps Brown Committee on labour-only subcontracting.

Mr. Prentice: My Department will be submitting factual evidence to the Committee on some aspects of the problem.

Mr. Murton: When the Minister submits his evidence, will he face up to the fact and realise the pernicious effects which the Selective Employment Tax is having? If he will not face up to them or does not realise them, is that the reason why this inquiry is not to be made public?

Mr. Prentice: The kind of evidence we will be giving will be factual evidence no such things as the way we arrange our own contracts. We shall not be attempting to propound solutions to the Committee. It is for the Committee to consider these. The Committee is free to examine the effects of S.E.T., among other things, if it wishes to.

Building Industry (Inducements)

Mr. Channon: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what representations he has received during the month of April from the building industry regarding the need for more inducements for the building industry; and what replies he has sent.

Mr. Prentice: None, Sir. The easing of credit restrictions and other measures have led to an increase in the volume of building work and a more confident mood among builders generally.

Mr. Channon: Is the Minister aware that, as has been made clear time and again this afternoon, the imposition of the Selective Employment Tax and the anomalies created, among other things, between direct labour departments and private industry, produces the most depressing effect and is damaging the building industry?

Mr. Prentice: I am well aware of strong views in the industry about the matters mentioned. I am bound to re-emphasise that, in general, there is a growing confidence in the industry. This is reflected everywhere. It is reflected, among other things, by the fact that there are no Questions on bricks this afternoon from hon. Members opposite.

Polaris Depot, Coulport

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what were the recent defects discovered in the building of the Polaris depot at Coulport; what repairs and alterations were made; and at what cost.

Mr. Prentice: Underground water seepage has caused dampness in five workshop buildings where very stringent standards of temperature and humidity control are essential. It is costing about £60,000 to put this right by means of grouting and drainage.

Mr. Hughes: As this is supposed to be a very expensive depot in which Polaris missiles are stored, costing, I believe, either £3 million or £5 million, should not the contractors be a little more careful

Mr. Prentice: I think that in this work the contractors have been careful. I am advised that the extent of the water seepage here could not have been foreseen and, further, that there will not be any overall delay in the programme as the result of this work.

Mr. Manuel: Was this site properly surveyed and bore-holes made'? Surely preliminary survey work was a necessity in view of the type of establishment which was to be built. If undertaken, water would have been discovered.

Mr. Prentice: The site was properly surveyed. We are dealing with very unusual buildings where the requirements regarding humidity and temperature are very precise. This is a different kind of building programme from any ordinary one.

Faslane and Coulport (Expenditure)

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what was the original estimate of the expenditure at Faslane and Coulport; how much was spent up to the end of March; what further expenditure he estimates will be incurred; and on what buildings and projects.

Mr. Prentice: The original estimate for works expenditure on the base in the Faslane/Coulport area in its present form was £20 million. £14 million has been spent so far, and I estimate that the final cost will be £23 million. This includes £4½ million for housing. Most of the remaining expenditure will be on works now in progress, but some further barrack accommodation, a civilian hostel and technical buildings are yet to be started.

Mr. Hughes: Is the Minister aware that the cost of these projects is having its repercussions on other building labour in the district? It is now said that the area round about this base has become the most expensive area for building costs in Scotland?

Mr. Prentice: Yes, Sir. I think that where there is a heavy programme of any kind it liable to have the kind of effects my hon. Friend has mentioned.

Old Treasury Building, Whitehall

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works whether he will clean up the outside of the Old Treasury building in Whitehall.

Mr. Prentice: I hope to announce shortly what further buildings will be cleaned when work on the Whitehall frontages of the Horse Guards and Dover House is completed.

Mr. Lewis: As the inside of this building has been refurbished, although it has not had much effect upon the political inhabitants, should not the façade be cleaned up?

Mr. Prentice: I have some sympathy with that suggestion. I will certainly consider whether the building should be included in the programme I hope to announce shortly.

Direct Labour Departments

Mr. Channon: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what evidence he has received from the Mann Committee regarding the efficiency of the direct labour departments inside his Department; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Prentice: My predecessor received a Report from the Mann Committee in 1965, which dealt with methods of executing maintenance and minor works. I am expecting to receive, in the early summer, a further report from the Committee on the use of directly employed labour.

Mr. Channon: Did not the Mann Committee say that direct labour departments inside a Minister's Department are less efficient than private contractors? Is that the reason why this information has not been given to the House?

Mr. Prentice: The first Report of the Mann Committee dealt mainly with other matters, and it made a number of recommendations, for example, on the way in which we let contracts. Most of those recommendations have been put into effect. The only reason why the Report was not published was that it contained a lot of confidential information obtained from firms, which it would have been wrong to make public.

Mr. Murton: If Parliament is not to be informed, how is it that the building trade operatives know the answer.

Mr. Prentice: There is some confusion here. I said in my original reply that I expect to receive the second report from the Committee, dealing with the question of directly employed labour, in the early summer. The unions have been giving evidence to the Committee and discussing among themselves the kind of evidence they would give and the general situation surrounding the report.

Public Building Programmes (Costs)

Mr. Costain: asked the Minister of Public Building and Works what representations he has received from professional people regarding the costs of public building programmes.

Mr. Prentice: None, Sir.

Mr. Costain: Will the Minister confirm that he has had no representation from the district auditors' association referring to the extra cost of using direct labour organisation in building?

Mr. Prentice: I can repeat my previous reply, "No, Sir", but I shall have an extra check made to see whether there is a letter such as the one the hon. Gentleman has in mind which may have escaped my notice.

Mr. Chichester-Clark: But is it not rather disturbing that, for one reason or another—good or bad—two reports are, apparently, being held back from Parliament? Surely, the Minister does not want to give the impression or let it get abroad that they do not reflect credit on certain forms of public enterprise dear to the Government's heart?

Mr. Prentice: The hon. Gentleman is on the previous Question. We have passed from that to the one asked by his hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain).

Oral Answers to Questions — SOCIAL SECURITY

Wage-stop

Mr. Winnick: asked the Minister of Social Security how many people who are affected by the wage-stop are disabled or suffering from lengthy sickness, which has been medically confirmed.

The Minister of Social Security (Miss Margaret Herbison): The wage-stop does net affect cases of lengthy sickness. The number of disabled people so affected is not known, but I can assure my hon. Friend that the Ministry's officers consider very carefully whether a disabled person should be required to register for work and hence made liable to wage-stop.

Mr. Winnick: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the deep anxiety which this whole matter raises? Is there any chance at all of doing away with this obnoxious regulation at least for the sick and disabled?

Miss Herbison: Perhaps I may give my hon. Friend some figures. On 28th March this year, 2,740 out of 27,286 wage-stopped cases were cases of temporary sickness, and, on the same date, over 306,000 sick persons were receiving supplementary allowance. We try to take the greatest care possible of these people.

Miss Pike: But will the right hon. Lady, nevertheless, given special attention to this problem when she is framing the legislation which she has foreshadowed regarding low-income families, because they are very badly hit at present?

Miss Herbison: Yes, Sir; low-income families, whether the father be in work or out of work, are badly hit at this time. The only way to help any of these families is by the kind of proposals which we hope to make very soon.

Mr. Frank Allaun: Was not the purpose of the wage-stop supposed to be to discourage malingering? In the case of disabled and long-term sick people, where medically confirmed, this cannot arise. Will my right hon. Friend look again at this point?

Miss Herbison: The figures I have already given show that long-term sick people do not suffer from the wage-stop at all. It would be very difficult to find criteria for the disabled because not every disabled person is a registered disabled person. The only criterion we have at present is that the man is fit for work, even if light work, and he is asked to register. As I have said, the only cure

is to help these families, as we propose to do, when the father is in work or out of work.

National Insurance Cards (Stamping)

Mr. Gurden: asked the Minister of Social Security if she will regularly notify employers on each occasion when a National Insurance card is over-stamped as she does in cases of under-stamping.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Social Security (Mr. Norman Pentland): Over-stamping by the employer may not be apparent at the time the card is handed in, and it would not be practicable to notify employers of all cases without disproportionate cost.

Mr. Gurden: Is not this an unfair practice? As the cards have to be checked for under-stamping, they could equally be checked for over-stamping.

Mr. Pentland: No, Sir; there is no precise parallel between over-stamping and under-stamping, because under-stamping normally prejudices the employee's benefit rights. In fact, no case of a card bearing more than a full year's stamps has come to our notice.

National Insurance (Trade Disputes)

Dame Irene Ward: asked the Minister of Social Security what regulations govern the National Insurance contributions for the draughtsmen locked out at various shipbuilding establishments.

Miss Herbison: The National Insurance (Contributions) Regulations do not allow contributions to be credited on account of unemployment to persons who are disqualified for unemployment benefit under the trade dispute provisions of the National Insurance Act. In general, such persons are liable to pay contributions at the non-employed rate.

Dame Irene Ward: How does that apply to employers? The position is very unsatisfactory. Is there no way of dealing with a situation of this kind, which has caused great resentment and difficulty on Tyneside and, no doubt, on other rivers where there is a lock-out?

Miss Herbison: Strong representations have been made to us from time to time


about this disqualification under the trade dispute provisions. Because of the difficulties involved, we have already sent it to the Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers' Organisations.

Mr. Rhodes: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many of my constituents have been suspended from work because of what the employer describes as a lack of work although, in fact, the work has been locked away, and when workers go to the insurance offices they are told that they cannot claim benefit because they are involved in a dispute? Is my right hon. Friend not aware of the considerable resentment and sense of frustration felt by these workers?

Miss Herbison: Yes, Sir. I am very much aware of that and have been for some time. It was on that account that I decided to send the matter to the Royal Commission, so that it could be further investigated.

Mr. Bob Brown: Does my right hon. Friend realise that this type of situation throughout the land is causing more and more resentment year by year? Does not she agree that, when employers are responsible for men being locked out, they should be made responsible for the National Insurance contributions?

Miss Herbison: That is another matter. My hon. Friend will know that those cases have been adjudicated on by the statutory authorities and that, as the result of such adjudication, it has been decided that benefit cannot be paid.

National Insurance (Chronic Sick)

Mr. Maurice Macmillan: asked the Minister of Social Security (1) when she will remove the anomalies whereby persons suffering from chronic illness are treated less generously under the National Insurance scheme than those suffering from chronic disability as a result of industrial injury or disease;
(2) whether she will take steps to alter the definition of disablement for National Insurance purposes to include all those suffering a medically ascertained defect, mental or physical, causing a long-term reduction in working capacity, regardless of whether such disablement arises from war, from industrial injury or from any other cause.

Mr. Astor: asked the Minister of Social Security if she will introduce regulations to rationalise the various scales of benefit applicable to the disabled and chronically sick, so that the benefits may be related to the degree of disablement rather than to the particular circumstances in which the disablement occurred.

Miss Herbison: The war pensions and industrial injuries schemes compensate for the special risks of service in the armed forces or in industry. This concept has no place in the National Insurance scheme whose purpose is to give comprehensive coverage for a loss of earnings due to sickness, however caused, to unemployment or to old age.

Mr. Macmillan: Does the right hon. Lady realise how great the discrepancy is—£6 10s. a week for a married man for illness and £9 5s. for industrial injury, and that is in the first six months, apart from more permanent disability. Whatever the cause, the hardship to the individual is the same. Will she not think again about doing what the Question asks, that is, altering the regulations so as to bring what one might call the civil disabled into line with industrially and war disabled?

Miss Herbison: There would be great difficulty in doing what the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. Astor) ask. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has taken soundings from ex-Service organisations such as the British Legion and B.L.E.S.M.A. or, on the industrial side, from the T.U.C. I think that there would be great resentment on their side if one were to accept the hon. Gentleman's proposal. On the other hand, I realise only too well the great hardships in the home caused by chronic sickness. What we have done in supplementary allowances has helped a little, and in our general review we are giving close attention to how we can help these families.

Mr. Astor: Would the Minister give special attention to the problem of the disabled housewife who may not be entitled to any benefit at present? Could she consider that question and announce the result ahead of the General Review?

Miss Herbison: The hon. Member has always shown great interest in this matter.


I have met representatives from the Association concerned, and I am fully conscious of the many problems and hardships involved. It is because of that that I have told the Association that we are giving the closest attention to the matter in our review.

Miss Pike: Will the Minister look again at the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Mr. Maurice Macmillan) of bringing together what he called the civil and industrial side? We are not suggesting that anybody would have anything taken away, and so I do not think that the question of resentment would come into the matter. It would do something to right what many people feel is an injustice at present.

Miss Herbison: This has been a difficulty that has obtained ever since those schemes came into being. I think that the better way is to ensure, whether or not there are differentials, that no one is in the kind of difficulties that some people are in at present.

Social Service Expenditure

Mr. Dean: asked the Minister of Social Security whether she will publish revised figures for social service expenditure, in the light of Her Majesty's Government's new estimate of economic growth.

Mr. Blaker: asked the Minister of Social Security what is her estimate of the total funds which will be devoted to social security benefits in 1969–70, calculated at 1965 prices, if the economy grows at a rate of 3 per cent. per annum between now and then.

Mr. Worsley: asked the Minister of Social Security what reduction in the provision of social services she expects, following the reduced rate of economic growth now anticipated by Her Majesty's Government.

Miss Herbison: I would refer the hon. Members to the passage in the Budget Statement in which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer outlined the action which the Government are taking in respect of long-term public expenditure programmes.

Mr. Dean: Why is the Minister so shy about giving us revised figures in the light of the new and smaller expectation

for economic growth? Is it not now the case that there will be very little money available for real increases in benefits between now and 1970?

Miss Herbison: I am not at all shy on these matters, and if the hon. Gentleman had listened to last Thursday's debate he would have found that that was so. What I have said—and I stress it again—is that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made it clear that the pattern of long-term expenditure programmes is now being reviewed to decide the order of priorities. He made that very clear in his Budget statement. When that review is complete I shall have no hesitation in giving information to the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Blaker: Will the Minister confirm that what she has just said means that when the review is complete she will give revised figures? She will recall that there were some specific figures in the National Plan, issued only 18 months ago, which are obviously now no longer applicable. The country will want to have something more precise in due course than what the right hon. Lady has now said.

Miss Herbison: I should expect that hon. Members and the country will want me to give revised figures if that is at all possible. All that I ask is that the hon. Gentleman awaits the result of the review. But I would add that in 1967–68 we shall be spending £500 million more on social security benefits alone, and I think that the people in the country prefer deeds and action to any speeches.

Mr. Frank Allaun: Nevertheless, will not that review inevitably show that, if our full social service programme is to be carried out, something else will have to be cut? Therefore, will the Minister urge my right hon. Friend who has responsibility for this in the Cabinet to press for this within the Cabinet and take up the cudgels on behalf of the social services?

Miss Herbison: I do not think that there is any doubt that those of us who are responsible for the social services are very good at taking up the cudgels.

Mr. Webster: How many recipients of unemployment benefit are expected for next winter out of the £500 million additional expenditure for next year?

Miss Herbison: If the hon. Member cares to put down that Question I should be very pleased to answer it. He should look at Thursday's debate to make comparisons of unemployment benefits.

Family Poverty

Mr. Worsley: asked the Minister of Social Security whether she will issue a White Paper giving the full details including full costings of Her Majesty's Government's alternative proposals for the relief of family poverty.

Miss Herbison: As I told the House on 20th April, the Government's proposals for relieving family poverty will be announced during the summer. The announcement will be made in the form considered most appropriate.

Mr. Worsley: Does not the right hon. Lady agree that to give full details of the alternative proposals would be a good plan? She has invited debate. Will she not now give the information on which we can have a more informed debate?

Miss Herbison: What I said last week was that the Government would announce their plans. We had a debate on Thursday. If we were now to publish a White Paper giving all the alternatives, that would delay for very much longer the help which these families very much need.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSE OF COMMONS

Catering Staff (Accommodation)

Sir Knox Cunningham: asked the Lord President of the Council what action has been taken to improve the conditions of the staff rest-rooms and changing-rooms in the House of Commons, arising out of the criticism made by the Treasury Catering Adviser.

Mr. Maxwell: I have been asked to reply.
I am aware that staff conditions in this respect need urgent improvement. The Accommodation and Housekeeping Sub-Committee are considering how to extend such accommodation, and in addition, a certain amount of redecoration of existing rooms is to be undertaken during the Summer Recess.

Sir Knox Cunningham: Since we help to pass legislation to improve conditions

outside the House, should we not take very urgent action to improve conditions for our own staff inside the House?

Mr. Maxwell: I entirely agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman. There are many things to be done to improve the conditions, not just for staff but for Members. A programme of work is in hand which involves the redecorating of about nine rooms, and other steps are being taken in consultation with the proper authorities to improve conditions generally.

Catering Staff (Pay)

Sir Knox Cunningham: asked the Lord President of the Council what progress has been made in the negotiations with the staff union representatives with regard to improved rates of pay for the catering staff of the House of Commons.

Mr. Maxwell: I have been asked to reply.
Negotiations are continuing. It is expected that they will be concluded before the Summer Recess.

Sir Knox Cunningham: Does the hon. Gentleman recall that in the past we were told that one of the reasons why there could not be an increase in wages was the price of meals. Now that the prices of meals have gone up, is it not time that we got down to the matter and saw that the staff's wages were put up?

Mr. Maxwell: As I said, negotiations are in progress and a wage increase in principle has been agreed. It would be wrong to prejudge the outcome of the negotiations, but I hope that better remuneration can be paid to the staffs, and that this can be met out of improvement in the performance of the Department without the cost falling as a charge on the Exchequer.

Members (Consultancy Service)

Mrs. Anne Kerr: asked the Lord President of the Council whether he will refer to the House of Commons Services Committee the matter of establishing a consultancy service for honourable Members, with provision of expert advice on, for instance, legal medical, and accountancy matters thus enabling Members to provide their constituents with more adequate service.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Richard Crossman): The Library already provides research and consultant services for hon. Members in many subjects. The Library Sub-Committee, which is at present engaged in an inquiry about long-term plans for the Library, will consider all appropriate development of such services.

Mrs. Kerr: Whilst I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply, I am not sure that it entirely answers my Question, which suggests that we should have expert advice. More and more Members of Parliament are finding their constituents coming up against blockages of various types of bureaucracy—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—whether it be private or national bureaucracy, and I ask my right hon. Friend to consider whether he might not initiate further moves towards the development of the kind of service I have in mind for a modern Parliament.

Mr. Crossman: I remind my hon. Friend that hon. Members should be a bulwark against bureaucracy, and it is our job to be so. But I shall certainly consider any further services my hon. Friend may require, if she can give me some instances of the kind of blockages where she finds that there is inadequate information in the Library.

Sir R. Cary: Surely, professional advice as indicated in the Question is available in every constituency? I often give a constituent the name of a good solicitor, medico or accountant. Surely, this is a matter for the individual initiative of a private Member?

Mr. Crossman: It is for each of us to interpret what my hon. Friend meant. I gather that she was mainly concerned with problems of Whitehall. I think that there are serious problems there, and I am willing to make sure that every information is available to Members.

Sir A. V. Harvey: What should be done when a Member has a constituent's problem for which there is no real Ministerial responsibility, and the Parliamentary Commissioner says that he is prevented from taking action because of the Act? What is a Member to do if, say, a corporation official has been done down over pension rights or injuries?

Mr. Crossman: That is a slightly different question, and I am not sure that it is one to put to me as Leader of the House.

Employees (Pay)

Mr. English: asked the Lord President of the Council whether it is proposed to apply that part of the Government's prices and incomes policy which relates to lower-paid workers to those employees of this House who fall within that category.

Mr. Crossman: I can assure my hon. Friend that any decisions taken on the pay of employees of this House will accord with the Government's prices and incomes policy.

Mr. English: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, unlike the highest-paid workers of the House, the lowest-paid lose earnings during the Recess? Does he think that that is right? Does he not think that it is time for him and the House, through the House of Commons Services Committee, to take control of the pay and conditions of employment of our staff?

Mr. Crossman: That is a rather different question. My hon. Friend originally asked me about the prices and incomes policy, and I answered. If he has particular questions about particular grades of employees here, my hon. Friend can put them to us, but I remind him that the best way is to put them to me personally and not through a Question here, since it is a matter for the Services Committee.

Mr. Winnick: asked the Lord President of the Council what action is being taken by the Services Committee to improve the pay of employees of the House of Commons earning £15 and under a week basic pay.

Mr. Crossman: The pay of all employees of the House of Commons earning £15 and under a week basic pay is either already under review by the authorities of the House or may shortly become subject to review in the light of any revision as a result of the current pay research negotiations in the pay of the Civil Service grades to which they are linked. Negotiations are in progress


about the rates of pay for the catering staff.

Mr. Winnick: Would my right hon. Friend not agree that some urgency is required here? Is it not a scandal that in our own place of work there should be large groups of people taking home much less than £15 per week?

Mr. Crossman: My hon. Friend should realise that the rates of pay here are largely fixed by linkage, agreed in 1954, with the Civil Service. If it is a scandal here it will be a scandal outside, too.

Mr. English: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in the answer to my previous supplementary on the same subject he gave an inaccurate reply? Is he aware that the members of the staff are not all controlled by the House of Commons Services Committee? Does he not think it is time that they were?

Mr. Crossman: That is a different question, and I may well have preferences on that matter.

Mr. Braine: Does the review to which the right hon. Gentleman referred cover the fact that some officers and servants of the House are working excessive hours as a result of the demands put upon them by a decision of the House?

Mr. Crossman: Yes, indeed it does. What is quite clear now is that we need an increase in staff quite apart from an increase in wages.

Parliamentary Recesses (Members' Facilities)

Mr. Dickens: asked the Lord President of the Council what proposals he has for extending the facilities available to Members during the Parliamentary Recess.

Mr. Crossman: The Palace of Westminster is always open during recesses for use by Members, and facilities are available during certain times of the day; Members' rooms and desk rooms are, of course, open at all times; the Refreshment Department is open on most days between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.; the Library is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and the Vote Office between 7.30 a.m. and 3 p.m. In addition, the photographic copying machines are available

between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., an extension of three hours over the previous practice.

Mr. Dickens: Does my right hon. Friend accept that certain basic services should be available to Members both during the Parliamentary Session and during the Recess? In particular, does he not agree that all Members should have available the services of photo-copying equipment—in this building—the services of the Vote Office and also a refreshment room between the hours of ten and five on all days during the Recess except on public holidays and week-ends?

Mr. Crossman: If my hon. Friend will read my Answer in HANSARD, he will find that I have covered his supplementary question.

Mr. Lubbock: Is the Lord President aware that last summer all restaurants in the Palace of Westminster were closed for the entire month of August? Does he appreciate that this was very inconvenient for hon. Members working in the building throughout that month? Will he take steps to ensure that in the next Summer Recess there will be at least one restaurant open?

Mr. Crossman: I will certainly consider all these questions, and ascertain exactly what the length of time is during which it is intended to close altogether during the Summer Recess.

Mr. William Hamilton: Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that facilities will be available during the Recess for Members to take their visitors round, in view of the fact that these tours will be curtailed as a result of the continuation of morning sittings?

Mr. Crossman: I entirely agree. As my hon. Friend says, we are likely, through our work, to reduce access for visitors. It is important that more days should be available in the Recess when visitors can make the full tour of the House without any kind of obstacle.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Without being too extravagant in one's demands, could one perhaps have some ink during the Recess?

Mr. Crossman: That is just the kind of detailed question that I would like to discuss with the hon. Gentleman behind Mr. Speaker's Chair.

Mr. Dickens: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I shall seek leave to raise the matter again on the Adjournment at the earliest possible opportunity.

Messrs. Ashworths (Fees)

Mr. Dickens: asked the Lord President of the Council if he will make a statement indicating whether the decision by the Services Committee that the fees charged by Messrs. Ashworths to Members should no longer be subject to a discount of 20 per cent. is in line with the Government's prices and incomes policy.

Mr. Crossman: Before the Services Committee came to this decision the increases in costs sustained by Messrs. Ashworths were very carefully considered. I am satisfied that the abolition of this discount was consistent with the Government's prices and incomes policy.

Mr. Dickens: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this means an effective increase of 25 per cent. on the charges levied on hon. Members by Messrs. Ashworths? Can hon. Members see what the evidence of Ashworths was to the Services Committee? Does my right hon. Friend not agree that this sets a deplorable example to the rest of the country at a time when we are calling for price restraint?

Mr. Crossman: This was a difficult case. I am certainly prepared to show my hon. Friend the detailed reasons why we gave this increase to Ashworths.

The Press (Access to the Terrace)

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Lord President of the Council what proposals he is making which will allow members of the Press, working in the Houses of Parliament, to have access to the Terrace.

Mr. Crossman: The Select Committee on House of Commons (Services) is considering the whole question of facilities for the Press, including the possibility of re-establishing "Annie's Bar" and granting access to the Terrace. No final decision has yet been reached, as difficult questions of accommodation are involved, but I hope that proposals now being considered may lead to a conclusion satisfactory to all parties.

Mr. Dalyell: When is a final decision likely to be reached? Is my right hon.

Friend aware that, while many of us are in favour of the reincarnation both of Annie and of her Bar, we should like to know what will happen about access to the Terrace when Parliament becomes muggier and muggier for those who have to work in it as the summer rolls on?

Mr. Crossman: I have to assure my hon. Friend that there is no question of the reincarnation of Annie herself; it is only the Bar. As regards the Terrace, there are very delicate matters of negotiations involved. There are two sides at least to this to be considered by the Services Committee. I can tell my hon. Friend that the Committee will be considering this in the immediate future.

Regional Employment Premium (Select Committee)

Mr. David Howell: asked the Lord President of the Council whether he will now move to set up a Select Committee to enable Parliament to play its part in the public discussion initiated by Her Majesty's Government on the proposal for a regional employment premium.

Mr. Crossman: As I said in answer to a question following the Business Statement last week, I am thinking carefully about the way in which the House should consider the Green Paper. I will certainly bear this suggestion in mind.

Mr. Howell: While welcoming that news, may I ask whether the Leader of the House will agree that there are some very complicated economic arguments advanced in the Green Paper, and is it not right that hon. Members should have the opportunity to question both the Ministers and the economic advisers who thought up these ideas, if possible in public? Does he not agree that if this technique is to be used in future it ought to be in an Economic Affairs Committee so that we can raise the level of public debate on these questions?

Mr. Crossman: I should be inclined to agree with the hon. Member, if there were such a committee, it would be the kind of subject to refer to it. We do not have such a committee, however. There is also the question of timing. We have to consider the most suitable way of consulting the House, but I can assure the hon. Member that the House will be consulted before a decision is taken.

Morning Sittings (Public Galleries)

Mr. Lubbock: asked the Lord President of the Council what inquiries he has made about the demand for seats in the public galleries during morning sittings; and if he will now take steps to revise the organisation of the House to ensure that members of the public are not excluded when empty seats are available.

Mr. Crossman: During morning sittings so far all demands for seats in the galleries from members of the public have been met on almost every day, and the delay in admission has been very short.

Mr. Lubbock: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that at one time there were 80 people waiting in the queue to get into the galleries in the morning? What steps has he taken so far to implement his promise, made in the procedure debate last week, that there would be an immediate increase in the number of staff employed, so that everyone could be admitted to the galleries?

Mr. Crossman: The hon. Member will find if he looks at HANSARD that I did not make a promise of an immediate increase. I said that it was urgently necessary to have an increase of both Clerks and Doorkeepers. As for the 80 people, it appears that for a few minutes there was a queue, but I am assured by the Serjeant at Arms that these queues have been extremely short. For instance, this morning there was no queue at all.

Mr. Murray: While recognising the difficulties with staff, may I ask my right hon. Friend to consider the possibility of allowing school children in groups, with their teachers, to come into the galleries and watch the sittings, rather than have wasted space upstairs?

Mr. Crossman: I do not think that we should allow schoolchildren in on a tour of the building as though we were a museum. If people come to our galleries, they should come to see the proceedings and listen to them. There is nothing which prevents a school child coming in merely because he is a school child.

Post Office (Changing of Cheques)

Mr. Bob Brown: asked the Lord President of the Council if he is aware of the cost of the present free facilities for the changing of cheques at the House of Commons Post Office; and what proposals he has to make.

Mr. Crossman: The cost of present free facilities for the changing of cheques at the House of Commons Post Office amounted to £1,620 in the year 1966–67. The Select Committee on House of Commons (Services), while regarding this service as useful to Members and others attending the House, does not consider that the whole of this charge should fall on public funds. It has therefore recommended to Mr. Speaker that the charge of 6d. per cheque, agreed between the Post Office and the banks, should be passed on whenever a cheque is cashed at the House of Commons Post Office.

Mr. Bob Brown: Is my right hon. Friend aware that he has the support of all fair-minded people inside and outside the House for the proposal that hon. Members and servants of the House should pay their way as they would do if they were outside the House?

Sir Knox Cunningham: When will the change take place?

Mr. Crossman: I have been waiting and delaying for some weeks now for a Question to be tabled in order to announce this. It can now take place as soon as Mr. Speaker gives permission.

Mr. Rankin: Can my right hon. Friend say what income will accrue to the Post Office from the charge?

Mr. Crossman: No income will accrue to the Post Office, but the taxpayer will cease to pay a subsidy to Members of the House of Commons.

Private Members' Bills

Mr. Blaker: asked the Lord President of the Council on what principle Her Majesty's Government acts when deciding to provide Government time for second reading debates on Private Members' Bills.

Mr. Crossman: The considerations include the state of the Government's own programme; the prospects for the Bill


in private Members' own time and the effect on other private Members' legislation; the amount of interest in and support for the Measure and possibly the progress the Bill has made. The Government's attitude to the Bill is also relevant.

Mr. Blaker: Does not the right hon. Gentleman feel that there is a difference between the case when a Private Members' Bill has already received the approval of the House on Second Reading and that when it has not? Should not that consideration also apply?

Mr. Crossman: Yes, certainly that is one of the considerations which apply, but it does not apply very much in the issue to which the hon. Gentleman is calling attention.

Mr. Webster: Is it not the case that the Live Hare Coursing (Abolition) Bill failed to get the right to be introduced to the House on Second Reading and that it is because of the Government's decision that it is now having priority over very much more constructive legislation?

Mr. Crossman: I would put it more accurately and fairly if I said that it failed to get the right to a Second Reading without a full discussion. What we have now given the Bill is the right to be heard and have a Second Reading debate, which is the proper thing to do with a Measure which, though it causes no party controversy, may divide one hon. Member from another across party lines.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF LABOUR

Wage and Salary Negotiations (Settlements)

Mr. Biffen: asked the Minister of Labour what is the estimated number of wage negotiations that have been concluded since 1st January; what are the numbers involved and the approximate percentage increase in rates and earnings arising from these settlements; and what are the corresponding figures for salary negotiations.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour (Mr. Roy Hattersley): Thirty-four major settlements, involving about 1,700,000 workers, were reached during the first quarter of

1967. These figures include three salary settlements involving about 50,000 workers. The approximate average increase in minimum rates of pay is 4·6 per cent.; It is not possible to calculate the effect upon earnings. Only three settlements have so far been implemented.

Mr. Biffen: Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that the most significant figure of all is the effect upon earnings? As the House regularly every week is involved in legislation to stop trade unionists from carrying out what they would normally expect to be their activities, does not the hon. Gentleman think that the least his Ministry should do is to give us the relevant statistics for the movement of incomes in the economy?

Mr. Hattersley: I am very well aware, as is my right hon. Friend, of the necessity to extend Government statistics in so far as they affect earnings. I am equally well aware that the figures which I have announced this afternoon show that the hon. Gentleman is wrong in his contention about the nature of House of Commons business week by week. Most weeks the Ministry of Labour accepts voluntary deferment of wage claims.

Self-employment

Mr. John Biffen: asked the Minister of Labour what evidence he has of the growth of self-employment in the building and constructional industry amongst engineering draughtsmen and in the retail trade; whether the movement of incomes for the self-employed is as comprehensively and regularly known as the movement of incomes for employees; what account is taken of this in the prices and incomes policy; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Hattersley: Information available indicates that there has been a steady increase in the number of cards exchanged by self-employed persons in construction, and a decrease in distribution, between mid-1961 and mid-1966. Such later information as there is does not suggest that there has been a more substantial move towards self-employment in construction more recently, though a number of individual cases of transfer to self-employment have come to notice. Statistics of incomes of self-employed persons are less comprehensive and frequent than those


of employees. These incomes, like others, are subject to incomes policy, though in certain cases the criteria for prices rather than for incomes are a more appropriate guide.

Mr. Biffen: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there will be many who will doubt the view taken by his Ministry that there has been no significant increase in self-employment in these trades in recent years? In view of the considerable importance of this issue, does he not think that it ought to be a matter of first priority that income arising from self-employment in the building industry should be every bit as comprehensively and as speedily known to the Ministry of Labour as is income arising from employment?

Mr. Hattersley: The hon. Gentleman has again misunderstood the Answer. There has been an increase of self-employment, but that increase has not been accelerated either since the beginning of the prices and incomes policy, or since the beginning of the Selective Employment Tax. The hon. Gentleman is equally right to say that it is important to have comprehensive understanding of the nature of self-employment in the building industry. That is why a committee has been set up to examine employment practices in that industry as a whole.

Mr. Orme: Can my hon. Friend say when we can expect a reply from the committee? To my knowledge, the matter has been before the Ministry for more than 18 months, and it is time that something was done urgently, as these practices are spreading and becoming much more comprehensive.

Mr. Hattersley: The inquiry into employment practices in the construction industry has been set up for only six weeks, and it would be very optimistic to look forward to an early report.

Phelps Brown Committee (Meetings)

Mr. Pym: asked the Minister of Labour what representations he has received from the building industry regarding the desirability of holding the meetings of the Phelps Brown Committee in public; and what reply he has sent.

Mr. Hattersley: The Government have received no such representations. As my

right hon. Friend said in reply to the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark) on 19th April, the Committee has decided to meet in private.

Mr. Pym: Have the Government had any influence on the decision of the Committee? Does not the Government think that it would be much better if the deliberations of the Committee were held in public?

Mr. Hattersley: It would be wrong for the Government to express an opinion either way, but it is appropriate to say that the Pearson Committee of Inquiry into shipbuilding and parts of the Devlin Inquiry into the docks were made in private in much the same way, so that there are good precedents for what this Committee has decided to do.

GIBRALTAR

Mr. Wall: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a report on the current Anglo-Spanish talks on Gibraltar.

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. George Brown): As the House is aware, the talks which were to have begun on 18th April were postponed.
On 19th April the Spanish Government informed us officially of the Prohibited Area near Gibraltar which they have declared, and gave us an explanatory memorandum. The Spanish Ambassador was asked again to call at the Foreign Office this morning to discuss this further. Meanwhile the United Kingdom Representative to the International Civil Aviation Organisation has been instructed to take the steps necessary to enable the matter to be considered by the current session of the I.C.A.O. Council.

Mr. Wall: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that comprehensive reply. Have protests been made to the United Nations about this further Spanish provocation?

Mr. Brown: No, Sir. I have not thought it necessary to go that far yet, but I have made very plain to the Spaniards and elsewhere what I feel. The hon. Gentleman can be quite sure that


we shall carry on from here with all the force that he would wish.

Mr. Maxwell: Will my right hon. Friend say exactly what steps the Spanish are taking to hinder air transport into Gibraltar? Can he say whether he is prepared to take counter measures against them?

Mr. Brown: The answer to the first question is, "None, Sir". I do not want to give answers which would be provocative, and it would, therefore, be better if I did not answer the second question.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Will the right hon. Gentleman please dispel any doubt that the Government hold that British sovereignty over Gibraltar is inviolable unless the people of the Rock desire any change in that position? When in Washington, did the right hon. Gentleman find a sympathetic attitude on the part of the Americans to help us in this dispute?

Mr. Brown: The first suplementary question does not arise out of this Question. If the hon. Gentleman will put it down as a separate Question, I will answer it, as I have before. The second matter did not arise when I was in Washington.

Oral Answers to Questions — RAILWAYS

Proposed Closures (Access to Stations)

Mr. Victor Yates: asked the Minister of Transport if she will give a general direction to the British Railways Board that in cases where the closure of a station is under consideration the normal access to such station shall be permitted pending her decision.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Stephen Swingler): No, Sir. This is a matter within the management discretion of the Railways Board. But users may, if they wish, make representations to the area Transport Users Consultative Committee.

Mr. Yates: Is the Minister aware that while the closure of Snow Hill Station is under consideration all entrances which are most convenient to the public have

been closed and the only entrance which has been kept open is the one which is most inconvenient? Is it not rather disgraceful not to take into consideration the inconvenience of the public in this matter?

Mr. Swingler: This is a matter of management for the Railways Board. I understand that one entrance to Snow Hill has been closed. Complaints have been made about it, and representations were considered, I think, three or four days ago by the Transport Users' Consultative Committee. My hon. Friend will appreciate that this in no way prejudices my right hon. Friend's decision about the closure proposals.

Mr. Webster: Will the hon. Member say whether any activity is going on at Snow Hill and whether there is reasonable access to people requiring to use it?

Mr. Swingler: I am informed that there is reasonable access but that one entrance has been closed. Complaints have been made and are being considered. This managerial action in no way prejudices the Minister's consideration of the closure proposals.

Mr. Manuel: Will my hon. Friend ask his right hon. Friend whether she would give directions that when proposals are made for the closure of a station none of the facilities then existing ought to be abolished until the decision has been made by the T.U.C.C.?

Mr. Swingler: No. Sir. I do not think that it would be practicable to say that no services could be changed and no facilities altered through the sometimes many months during which a proposal for closure is being considered. This is a matter of judgment by the management. But the fact is that any managerial alterations which are made will in no way influence my right hon. Friend's judgment on the merits of a closure proposal.

Mr. Yates: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the Answer, I wish to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible opportunity.

GREECE (BRITISH NATIONALS)

Mr. Winnick: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will make a statement on the position of British nationals in Greece, arising from the change of Government in that country.

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. George Brown): At mid-day I received a report from our Embassy which said that the situation throughout Greece was reported to be calm. However, since then a further attempt by me to contact the Embassy has met with the response that all calls were being refused. The situation therefore remains confused.
With one exception, we have received no reports that any British subjects have suffered materially or physically during the events of the past few days. The one exception is a report just received that two brothers called Olympios, who are citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies and have been resident in Greece all their lives, were arrested during the week-end for security reasons.
The Embassy in Athens is looking into this urgently. We shall remain in the closest touch with the situation and take whatever measures are required to ensure the protection of British subjects and their property.

Mr. Winnick: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many of us are very deeply concerned about the position of British tourists and other nationals in Greece? Is he aware of the widespread feeling of concern in this country that the extreme Right-wing military riff-raff have taken control in that N.A.T.O. country?

Mr. Brown: I do not think that the latter comment will help very much. I doubt whether my hon. Friend knows more than I know at the moment about the situation, and that would not justify either of us in expressing opinions. As for British subjects who are en passant or resident, we shall take whatever steps are required to look after them.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home: The House readily accepts the assurance which the Foreign Secretary has given that he will take all the action necessary to protect British lives. Would it not be more to the point, instead of dealing in recrimi-

nations, that we should say how concerned we are that a friend and ally should be involved in these acts of political violence and hope that constitutional government will soon be restored?

Mr. Whitaker: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that Her Majesty's Government do not recognise the new régime?

Mr. Brown: May I suggest that that point does not arise at the moment. My latest information is—and I say this in view of the headlines in our mid-day papers—that the King is not under house arrest. At this moment it is, therefore, quite impossible to decide what status the new régime has, and I think that it will be wise for us to wait a little while to see.
In the light of what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home) said just now, to see a friend and ally going through this kind of problem and trouble is as much of concern to us as it is to them. Since one remembers how much can flow from this in other dangerous areas of the world, of course we are very concerned.

Mr. Murray: Would my right hon. Friend say what representations he has made about the refusal to accept telephone calls to our Embassy in Athens? Has he made any representations in London about this?

Mr. Brown: I have made very many representations in London, only to discover that the blockage was not here. It is not possible at the moment to say more than that I could not get through. I wanted to give the House, if I could, an up-to-date report based on a talk with our Ambassador there, who is an absolutely first-class man, but I could not get through. I do not think that it is worth commenting any further on why I could not get through.

BRISTOL SIDDELEY ENGINES (COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY)

The Minister of Technology (Mr. Wedgwood Benn): With permission, I should like to make a statement about the independent inquiry which my hon. Friend the Minister of State announced on 5th April would be instituted to examine the circumstances of the Bristol Siddeley case.
The Committee of Inquiry is being set up jointly by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and myself. Its terms of reference will be:
To investigate the circumstances of the pricing of certain contracts for the overhaul of aero-engines in the period 1959 to 1963, leading to repayment in March 1967 by Bristol Siddeley Engines Limited to the Ministry of Technology; and matters relating thereto; and to report to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Minister of Technology as soon as possible. The Committee should feel free to make any recommendations they may consider necessary, in the light of their inquiry, on the need for further investigations into any aspects of Government contractual operations; or to request an extension of their terms of reference for this purpose.
As in the case of the Lang inquiry, this will be a committee of three. I am glad to say that Sir Roy Wilson, Q.C., the President of the Industrial Court, has accepted our invitation to act as chairman. He has wide experience of the conduct of committees of inquiry.
Sir Leslie Robinson and Mr. C. J. M. Bennett have agreed to serve as members. Sir Leslie had many years of Government service and since he retired from the Board of Trade in 1963 he has been in industry. Mr. Bennett is a partner in a well-known firm of chartered accountants and has considerable experience of official inquiries.
It will be seen that the Committee's terms of reference have been so drafted as to require it in the first place to investigate all the circumstances of the case itself; and to leave it open to the Committee, if it sees fit, to propose either that the Committee itself should go on to examine wider aspects of Government contracting or that some other body should be required to do so.
It is hoped that the Committee will be able to produce a first report by the end of July this year.

Mr. R. Carr: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we on this side of the House strongly welcome the setting up of this inquiry. The size of the Committee and its membership seem to us to be highly satisfactory. May I put one question to the right hon. Gentleman about the terms of reference? Does the phrase "matters relating thereto" definitely enable the Committee to inquire into all the events

subsequent to 1963, up to and including all that happened before and after Easter this year?

Mr. Benn: The phrase "matters relating thereto" was put in so as to be sure that the Committee did not feel its terms of reference to be restrictive upon it in any way. I would like to say that I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for so associating himself with the need and the character of this inquiry.

Mr. Dalyell: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that we do not have to wait till July for Government action on the question of equality of information which came up from the Lang Report?

Mr. Benn: As my hon. Friend knows, this is a matter which is the subject of consultation between the Government and the C.B.I. He is quite right in supposing that there is no necessary connection between this inquiry and that issue.

Mr. Lubbock: Do the terms of reference permit the Committee to inquire into any other case of over-charging which may come to light quite apart from the Bristol Siddeley one? As he knows, strong reference has been made in the House to other possible cases of overcharging.

Mr. Benn: The terms of reference were so drawn as to invite the Committee to look first at this particular case; in the latter part of the terms of reference special provision is made to enable the Committee itself to recommend what it thinks should happen next. Therefore, this would, I think, cover any considerations of the kind that the hon. Member has in mind.

Mr. William Hamilton: Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that the setting up of this Committee will not inhibit or delay inquiry by the Committee on Public Accounts?

Mr. Benn: The Committee on Public Accounts is perfectly able to reach its own decision on this matter. The announcement I have made today has no bearing at all on what that Committee may in its wisdom decide to do.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Pending the results of the inquiry, can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the Ministry is making


full use of outside consultants about costing, to make sure, if the Ministry cannot take care of its own affairs, that it will get outside advice from people who can?

Mr. Benn: I do not think that that question is really as helpful as, perhaps, the hon. Member had in mind. The problem here is that of getting from the firms with which we deal equality of information, including post-costing, to enable us to have enough information to reach a fair bargain with a firm. It is not a problem of the skill or capacity of the contracting staff. It is a question of getting enough information to permit a proper contract to be arrived at. Outside consultants who have not that information, or access to post-costing, would not in those circumstances be able to help.

Mr. Rankin: When my right hon. Friend said that the Committee would have the power to cover a wider scope than is indicated, was he referring to the number of years which were referred to, and some other aspects?

Mr. Benn: No. I think that I may not have made myself clear. The Committee, in the first instance, is invited to look at this particular case and matters related thereto. That is to say, it has absolute freedom in the first instance to look at any aspect of this particular case. If, at the end of its inquiry, the Committee feels that any further inquiry is necessary then it has the right to recommend that, without coming back in any way to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and myself. The Committee has all the freedom it needs to look at this particular case, including the lapse of time which occurred between the first report and the final one.

Mr. Onslow: Is it or is it not the Government's intention to make any change in the defence contracting procedure before this Committee reports? Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether he has yet been able to establish whether there is any other case which may be referred to this inquiry? Will the inquiry be able to conduct an investigation into the behaviour of the Minister of State and the Department in this matter?

Mr. Benn: As far as defence contracting itself is concerned, if the hon. Gentle-

man has in mind wider questions than those which affect me he should put them down to the appropriate Minister.
As for the terms of reference of the Committee, as I made absolutely clear in my original statement, the Committee has a right to look at anything it likes.
As I have made clear, and as has been made clear by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on other occasions, the contract procedure cannot be regarded as satisfactory till there is access to equality of information, including post-costing.

Mr. Mendelson: As my right hon. Friend has just announced that discussions on the principle involved are proceeding between the Government and the C.B.I., would he give the House an assurance—it would be a relevant assurance—that till these discussions on the principle are concluded the Government will not enter, without the authority of his Ministry, into any further contracts which are liable to the same difficulties as have arisen in the Siddeley case?

Mr. Bean: I have given instructions that no further fixed-price contracts are to be entered into with Bristol Siddeley without my own personal concurrence. And I am sure that that was right, but I must warn my hon. Friend that the danger of departing from fixed-price contracts is that one would move inevitably towards cost-plus, which is really a much greater danger for the Government.

Mr. Brooks: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the evidence, whether oral or in writing, which is submitted to the Committee, will be published in full?

Mr. Benn: The report will be published, but I think that one must be guided by the Committee itself and that it should decide its own procedure.

Mr. Maxwell: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that he will insist, in the negotiations with the C.B.I., that equality of information will be given, regardless of how long the present Committee will take to report? Can he tell the House whether, under the Committee's terms of reference, he will agree to extend its scope, to look a little bit deeper at better use of the Government's purchasing power to induce industry not to overcharge when it has opportunities to do so?

Mr. Benn: I should make clear to my hon. Friend that these discussions about


equality of information and post-costing are going on between the Treasury and the C.B.I. and that they have no bearing whatsoever upon the inquiry into this particular case and will not require to be delayed till this inquiry is completed.
On the wider question of Government procurement, discussions have been going on, and have been for some time, to see whether a general improvement could not he achieved.

GREECE (BRITISH NATIONALS)

Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent and public importance namely,
the armed rebellion against the legitimate Greek Government and constitutional authority and the consequent involvement of British citizens and the Armed Forces in a situation in which their personal safety, rights and interests are endangered".
I have given you notice, Mr. Speaker, that I wished to move this Motion, and I would be grateful to you if you would rule whether it is in order.
I would like to call to the attention of hon. Members the fact, underlined by the Foreign Secretary, that we have no guarantees of any kind whatsoever that British civilians or members of our Armed Forces in Greece are safe from molestation and that the rights of individual citizens are being safeguarded. There is no communication; there is no attempt to facilitate communication on the part of the Greek rebel Government.
It is known that a censorship, as strict as any that has ever been imposed by any Fascist Government, has been clamped upon all communication with the outside world. There is no radio communication. It is impossible to enter or to leave Greece for those British civilians involved. We do not know whether they are safe or not, or even whether they may at this moment be under molestation.
I should like to emphasise that we have, at Larissa, units of the Royal Air Force under the same command as the military forces of Greece—under the same command, that is, of N.A.T.O.; and that in neighbouring Cyprus we have, under

United Nations command, a contingent of the peace-keeping force soldiers as well. All these people can at any moment be involved in a most dangerous situation along with private British citizens who are now on holiday, or resident; and who cannot get in touch with their friends and relatives, including myself. Some of us do know a little about what is happening, even in spite of what my right hon. Friend said just now about lack of normal contact.
I have given you notice, Mr. Speaker, of this as soon as I possibly could, this being the first opportunity since the first news on Friday. I do not think there is any doubt that this matter is also of public importance and of importance, I would hope, to all parties in the House. Finally, I do not think there is any doubt as to its urgency—certainly for our British civilians involved in Greece. For them, there is no doubt whatever of its urgency.
It is our bounden duty to make every effort at contact and find out whether our people in Greece are safe, and to make sure that their rights are being safeguarded. This is an elementary right, and I seek to be allowed to move this Motion so that the full facts can be placed before the House.

Mr. Speaker: Will the hon. Gentleman the Member for Western Isles (Mr. Malcolm MacMillan) bring to me a copy of his Motion?

(Copy of Motion handed in.)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice that he would seek to move that this matter be considered under Standing Order No. 9. Before I rule, may I say that I need not assure him or any other hon. Member of the House that the Speaker is as deeply concerned as any other right hon. or hon. Gentleman at what is happening in a country which we all love.

The hon. Gentleman asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely,
the armed rebellion against the legitimate Greek Government and constitutional authority and the consequent involvemet of British civilians and the Armed Forces in a situation in which their personal safety, rights and interests are endangered.

I regret that I could not hold this Motion to be within the Standing Order, except in defiance of precedent. Motions are at present out of order where the responsibility of Her Majesty's Government is not directly and immediately involved, or where a foreign Government are more directly responsible. It is for the House some time to decide what should be the proper scope of Standing Order No. 9, but at present I am bound by a long series of Rulings involving the particular restriction to which I have drawn attention, so that I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman's Motion.

Mr. MacMillan: Mr. Speaker, while, of course—

Mr. Speaker: I hope that, when Mr. Speaker rules on Standing Order No. 9, his Ruling will be accepted.

Mr. MacMillan: It is not with any disrespect to your Ruling that I rise, Mr. Speaker. It may be that I was remiss in not drawing attention to the fact that, of course, the Foreign Secretary has a direct responsibility for every British citizen in Greece, and that the Army and Royal Air Force Ministers of Defence have a direct responsibility. In addition, there is no recognisable Government in Greece with whom to negotiate.

Mr. Speaker: I assure the hon. Gentleman that I heard the Foreign Secretary, and I gave great thought to the matter before giving my Ruling. I am aware of all the factors which the hon. Gentleman has mentioned.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY)

Ordered,
That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before half-past Nine o'clock.—[Mr. Gourlay.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[17TH ALLOTTED DAY] [2nd Series],—considered.

Orders of the Day — PROBLEMS OF THE REGIONS

Mr. Speaker: Before I call upon the right hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr), may I announce that I have not selected the Amendment standing in the names of the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) and his hon. Friends, but that I have selected the Amendment in the names of the Prime Minister and his right hon. Friends.

3.53 p.m.

Mr. Robert Carr: I beg to move,
That this House regrets the effect of Her Majesty's Government's restrictive economic policies on the development of the less prosperous regions, and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to take positive measures clearly designed to promote economic growth in these areas.
This is an extremely important subject. I think that all of us, wherever we sit in the House, are agreed that anything which we can do to correct the persistent imbalance of activity between one region and another would be an extremely valuable achievement, economically and socially.
In raising this debate, we have two purposes in mind. First, we wish to expose what we regard as the hollowness and failure of the Government's policy in yet another vital part of the nation's life. Secondly, we wish the House to have the opportunity to discuss critically, but constructively, the needs of the less prosperous regions and the most likely policies to meet them satisfactorily. Those two purposes are quite clear in the words of the Motion which we have tabled and which is before the House.
It is natural and right for an Opposition to attack a Government wherever they see that Government's policies failing. It is equally natural for a Government to defend themselves. However, I appeal to the Government spokesmen today to respond constructively as well as defensively, to respond self-critically and not just in the spirit that everything which they do must be right and must


be defended at all costs. I appeal to them most strongly to treat the debate in that spirit. Let us have our attack and our defence, but let us, please, have some constructive thinking for the future, tinged with self-criticism and a certain attitude of humility.
I am bound to say that the terms of the Government's Amendment are not encouraging in that respect. The Amendment starts off by blaming the Tory Government for what we did in the 13 years during which we were in power. I notice that this is the second Government Amendment in a week which has had to fall back on that excuse. That gambit may have worked in 1965, but right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite should have grown up by now. It will not wash any more, in 1967.
The facts and the judgment of the National Plan, with its promise of a 3·8 per cent. growth rate, were this Government's sole responsibility and no one else's. So were the promises and estimates on which they fought a General Election a year ago. As the Foreign Secretary said in Belper on 30th March, 1966, the eve of poll last year:
There can be no alibis for us. We are carrying on where we left off. This time we cannot claim to have inherited a Tory mess.
If there are any skeletons in the Downing Street cupboards, they come from the corpses of the Prime Minister's own dead promises and from no other source.
Under the Conservative Government, during the five financial years ended on 31st March, 1965, over £140 million was provided in the development areas for nearly 2.000 projects estimated to provide about 200,000 new jobs. As the Chancellor of the Exchequer said on television only a few months after the Conservative Government left office, referring to the development regions,
They are absolutely booming ahead, I am glad to say. Scotland, the North-East, the North-West and Wales are all doing fine …
They are not doing fine now, as every hon. Member knows.
It is the policies of this Government alone which have changed the picture, and so the first part of the Government's Amendment is demolished by the words of their own leaders—the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Foreign Secretary—which I have just quoted to the House.
The second part of the Government's Amendment, instead of putting forward or promising the putting forward of policies to improve matters, is complacently self-congratulatory. "A better balance" is one of the key phrases. However, during the nine months since the freeze of last July, unemployment in the less prosperous regions of these islands has grown more rapidly and is greater in absolute terms than at a comparable stage in any of the squeezes applied by the Conservative Government. Far from being protected, the less prosperous regions have been hit harder and faster by this freeze than by the previous ones, and it is no comfort to the people in those less prosperous regions if the more prosperous have been hit hard as well.
Do the Government really want to take credit for having clobbered the rest of the country so hard that by comparison the proportion of unemployment in the development regions looks far less bad than, in fact, it is? Is that really the claim which the Government want to put before the country?
Only yesterday the Sunday Times carried news of a report from the Lancashire and Merseyside Industrial Development Association saying that the Government's declared policy for correcting imbalance has been a sham. Those are not my words as an Opposition politician, but the words of the Industrial Development Association, and the promise that in this squeeze the less prosperous regions would be protected has been proved to be a false and empty one.
Let us look at the figures. The latest employment figures for mid-April were published by the Ministry of Labour last Thursday, and they bode extremely ill for the less prosperous regions. The seasonally adjusted national figure for wholly unemployed for the nation as a whole increased by no less than 28,300 in the four weeks between the March and April counts, and the seasonally adjusted percentage went up in every region, with one exception, the Eastern and Southern Region. The seasonal trend for unfilled vacancies were also unfavourable, and I ask the House to compare the present position in the less prosperous regions with that in April, 1962.
As the House knows, April, 1962, was nine months after the squeeze which was introduced in July, 1961 by my right hon.


and learned Friend the Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd). That was the squeeze which was vilified by the Labour Party and which they said would never be repeated by a Labour Government. Similarly, April, 1967, is nine months after the squeeze introduced last year by the Prime Minister. The periods are, therefore, exactly comparable, and if hon. Members study the Ministry of Labour figures they will find that in every case unemployment in the less prosperous regions in April, 1967, is higher than it was in April, 1962. Not only is it higher in actual numbers, but, what is worse, what is potentially far more dangerous, is that it has been rising, and is rising faster than it did five years ago.
Let us consider the figures which prove what I have just been saying. Let us consider the percentage increase in unemployment which took place between July and April of those two periods, between July and April, 1961–62, and July and April, 1966–67.
During the last nine months unemployment in Scotland has increased by 55·9 per cent. In the 1961–62 period, it increased by only 33·6 per cent. Unemployment in Wales during the last nine months has increased by 83·9 per cent. In 1961–62, it increased by only 53·7 per cent. In the Northern Region, in the last nine months unemployment has risen by 97·7 per cent. In the same period in 1961–62 it rose by only 79·8 per cent. In the North-Western Region the increase in the last nine months amounted to 117·6 per cent., whereas it was only 78·6 per cent. in the same period in 1961–62. In the South-Western Region there has been an increase of 109·7 per cent. in the last nine months, compared with an increase of only 77·9 per cent. in 1961–62. In Northern Ireland, there has been an increase of 45·1 per cent. in the last nine months, whereas in the same nine months of 1961–62 the increase was only 18·2 per cent.
One sees, therefore, that in every one of the less prosperous regions unemployment today is not only higher than it was in 1961–62 at the same stage of the previous squeeze, but it has been rising more rapidly, and this is the dangerous point.
On what course are the development regions now set? According to the Chancellor, the course for the country as

a whole is "steady as she goes". If this is so, the less prosperous regions are headed straight for the rocks. Let us hope that the Chancellor's words are not right.

Mr. Hector Hughes: The right hon. Gentleman has several times used the expression, "the less prosperous regions". Will he be so kind as to say what he means by the less prosperous regions? Does he realise that if he includes North-East Scotland in that expression his statements are grossly inaccurate?

Mr. Carr: By less prosperous regions I mean the regions which I have read out and the figures which I have given. I do not believe that those figures can be challenged. I am sure that during the last nine months, as in any year or any nine months, one will find variations within each region, but the figures which I have given include the hon. and learned Gentleman's area with the rest of the Scottish region.

Mr. Hector Hughes: rose—

Mr. Carr: No. I have given way once, and I wish to continue.

Mr. Hector Hughes: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. If the right hon. Gentleman who has the Floor does not give way, the hon. and learned Member must not go on trying to intervene.

Mr. Hector Hughes: Which are the less prosperous regions?

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Carr: If the Chancellor is right in saying that the national course is "steady as she goes", the less prosperous regions to which I have just referred are heading straight for the rocks, and so I ask the Government to tell us their estimates for unemployment in these regions next winter. According to the National Institute's Economic Review for February, 1967, on present policies unemployment will go on rising into the beginning of 1968 and beyond—that is the total unemployment in the country—and this, the Economic Review thinks, might imply figures of about 5 per cent. in Scotland and the Northern Region to take two examples.
Do the Government agree that that is what might happen? If they do not,


what are their estimates? I know that there is a certain Governmental tradition not to talk about estimates, but I beg the Government to think twice about maintaining that tradition in this important matter today, because in a matter which is so important to such a vast number of people in this country the Government have a duty to tell us what they know, and what they expect. We know that estimates can be fallible, but I beg the Government to come forward with the best estimate they can, because a refusal to do this will only increase anxiety in the development areas, will make them fear the worst, and will depress that vital factor of confidence which it is extremely important to nourish.
The Government spokesman when he deals with much of the rest of the story of decline which I have put before the House will no doubt tell us something about new factory building, and how much of this has been approved by the Government in the less prosperous regions during 1966. I am glad that the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) is so pleased, because, strangely enough, so am I, and I am sure the House is, too, because we all want this problem to be solved. I hope that the Joint Under-Secretary for Economic Affairs will tell us about it, and give us full and up-to-date information.
What worries us is the fact that a large proportion of the 1966 approvals must have been sought before the 20th July measures, or at least before the firms had had time to assess the effects of those measures upon their prospects. We want as much concrete information as we can get on the question whether these approvals are being turned into bricks and mortar at the expected rate. May the House be given chapter and verse, and not merely generalisations? How many extra jobs will these new factories create in 1967 and 1968? What is the current rate of application for new factories? Is it being maintained, in spite of the freeze? These are vital factors in assessing the future situation.
I cannot help noticing that according to the official figures factory completions, as opposed to approvals, were tending to fall in 1966. I do not know what latest figures are available to the Government,

but to people outside it is possible to know the figures only for the first part of 1966, and in that period there was a tendency for competions to fall as compared with 1965. They fell in the first half of 1966 in Scotland, the North and the South-Western Regions—three of the most important that we are considering today.
So much for the figures and the position. I now turn to the second half of the Motion, which is concerned with the needs of the development regions and the policies most likely to meet those needs. My hon. Friends and I put first the need for having a prospect of expansion. This is the prime condition for progress. Without it we can hang out all the bait we like; the fish will not bite. Without it we can cover Scotland, Wales, Devon and Cornwall with advance factories, end to end, and we shall not fill them. We should never have got the motor car industry to go to Scotland and Merseyside without the prospect of expansion. Look at that industry today. The prospect of expansion last summer was knocked on the head, and has not yet been revived, especially in industries of good growth potential. The index of industrial production in February of this year was the same as it was in December, 1964–26 months earlier, when this Government first came to power.
The prospect of economic growth to 1970 held out by the Chancellor in his recent Budget speech is, to say the least, extremely depressing. It represents a rate of growth less than that achieved under the Conservative Government—a rate which was so readily criticised by the party opposite as being hopelessly inadequate not only for the country as a whole, but for the less prosperous regions in particular.

Mr. J. J. Mendelson: Does the right hon. Gentleman recall that when discussing the period to which he has referred—from July last year to April of this year—on several occasions the right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod) has told the Chancellor, "You must carry on with deflation. You must carry on on the rocky road"? What right has the right hon. Gentleman now to criticise the Government, his right hon. Friend having given approval during the last nine months?

Mr. Carr: Every right—among others, the right to challenge the Government on the policies on which they went to the country, which were exactly opposite to the ones that they have been carrying out.
As I have said, the rate of growth which the Chancellor mentioned in his Budget speech not a fortnight ago was less than that actually achieved in the last six years of Conservative Government—a rate that was labelled by the party opposite as being hopelessly inadequate for the country as a whole and the less prosperous regions in particular. At least, in the "bad old days of Tory misrule" we achieved a growth rate of 3·8 per cent. a year—and achieving something is much better than promising it falsely.
The second factor which is of vital importance to the less prosperous regions is the factor of confidence and of financial availability for new investment. Confidence and new finance depend largely, but not entirely, on the prospect of expansion, about which I have been talking. Another essential requirement is that of profit. Good profits are essential, first, for firms to plough back into new investment and, secondly, to give firms the financial status which they require to be able to raise new money.
The Government and their supporters must stop talking with two voices about profits. This is where confidence in industry is necessary, as the C.B.I. has recently made clear. If the Government are deliberately to go on squeezing profits in order to appease their left wing, I can assure them that they will not get an upsurge of new investment in the development areas, because the finance necessary for that new investment will not be available.
The Government must also change their taxation policy. Not only must taxation of industrial profits be reduced in total; it must be changed in kind and in scale. The combination of Corporation Tax and the withholding tax on dividends at their present rates is seriously reducing the cash generation for new investment in many companies. Furthermore, if the Government want to encourage the really efficient firms to go to development areas—and in the long run only the efficient firms will do those areas permanent good—they should give up their misconceived system of invest-

ment grants and return to investment allowances, coupled with free depreciation.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (Mr. Peter Shore): indicated dissent.

Mr. Carr: The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Economic Affairs shakes his head. I am a practical man and not a theorist in this matter. I know—because I have been at the receiving end of this system in industry.
What action is needed in addition to the factors of expansion, confidence, finance for the encouragement of new investment in development areas? There is the question of specific incentives. We believe that there are three essential requirements. First, they must be certain; secondly, they must be clear—that is to say, easily understood; and, thirdly, they must be easily and quickly obtained. We are not satisfied that either in the present or in the past—I am not seeking to make any party point—the grants and subsidies available have always met those essential conditions of certainty, clarity and speed.
I suggest that there should now be a critical study of the experience and views of firms which have already gone to development areas in order to discover what their troubles were, to what extent they were helped, and whether they feel that they could have been helped more or in a different way. We now have enough experience of firms which have already taken this step to be able to draw on that experience and to learn from it.
It is important to be clear about the real purpose of development area grants and subsidies. Development areas will flourish only if they attract efficient and profitable investment. Grants should not be pitched at a level which will attract activities which could not be undertaken profitably without the subsidy. The object of these grants and subsidies should be to tilt the scales in favour of a particular location for an investment which, in any case, would be undertaken somewhere. Essentially, therefore, they should provide pump-priming aid to enable companies to overcome the initial difficulties and costs of getting established in a new area, and should not be permanent subsidies which make good any lack of competitive efficiency.

Mr. Ted Leadbitter: If you: supposition is correct the grant system should be based on the criteria that you have given—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must put his question in the proper way.

Mr. Leadbitter: Before the debate ends, will the right hon. Gentleman explain why the firm of Pitch Fibre Pipes (Hartlepools) received a £238,000 grant under the last Conservative Administration, against the kind of criteria that the hon. Member has mentioned?

Mr. Carr: I am sure that the Minister will look up the records and give the required information. I have no means of doing so. The hon. Gentleman is getting this wrong. Can we not apply ourselves, as I appealed, to a constructive Parliamentary discussion of what should be done now? If the House cannot get away from perpetual post-mortems on what has happened in the past—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] As I said, let us have our attack and our defence. That is part of what the House is for, but it is for a second purpose—

Mr. Leadbitter: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must contain himself.

Mr. Leadbitter: On a point of order. Throughout his speech the right hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) has insisted upon facts and a constructive examination of regional problems. I appeal, through you, Mr. Speaker, that the right hon. Gentleman should pursue this line and answer questions adequately and not make comments of the kind that he has made.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member has been in the House long enough to know that that is in nowise a point of order.

Mr. Carr: I devoted the beginning of my speech to the functions of the House in the case of the Opposition attacking a Government who they believe have failed, and I have no doubt that Government speakers will devote part of their speeches to defending themselves. I am now dealing with the second part of the proposal, which I hope will be dealt with also by the Government, which is discussing in a constructive but critical

way what we might do to improve things in future.
I dealt with specific incentives and want now to turn to the importance of infrastructure and services. The importance of these has often been underestimated. We believe that a strong case can be made for spending more of the money available on this aspect of the problem and less, perhaps, on direct incentives to individual firms. Good communications are essential, not only for freight but for people, for the management of the company itself—if it is, as so often happens, a company with parents and factories in other parts of the country and perhaps other parts of the world—as well as for customers from home and abroad. This, among other things, means good air services.
Life in the area must, in general, be made attractive to the managers and key workers who may have to be imported to start a new factory and to visitors as well. That means housing, hospitals, hotels, shopping and recreational facilities, cultural activities like theatres and in many ways cleaning up the mess of a past industrial age. That sort of development would boost the present industries as well as attracting new ones.
Here, however we come up against what we believe to be the folly of the Selective Employment Tax. It is doubtful whether any Government have ever undertaken any one measure more damaging to the development areas than S.E.T. The proposition that employment in all manufacturing activities should be subsidised and that in all service industries taxed is, we believe, perverse and wrong in principle. It is particularly damaging in development areas, where there is an urgent need for more and better services to make the area more attractive by raising the quality of life.
It is particularly important in some cases—such as the Highlands, North Wales and the South-West—where service industries, notably tourism, are a primary and not a secondary source of employment. The discriminating effects of S.E.T. must be abolished—we would say throughout the country, but surely, beyond argument, at least in the development areas.
Similarly, if we want to encourage service industries in the development areas, it is necessary to remove another


of the Government's pet follies, namely, investment grants, which again discriminate against all services and favour all manufacturing regardless. The combination of S.E.T. and discriminating investment grants has been a body blow, particularly to the tourist industry, which is the basic industry in many important parts of the less prosperous regions.
Another important factor in attracting growth to these areas is mobility of labour. Some misguided enthusiasts of the development areas are inclined to equate mobility of labour with emmigration; but nothing could be further from the truth. Physical mobility within the regions is essential to get movement of labour to new growth points and occupational mobility is essential if new industries are to get the labour they want, which should always be the main attraction of a development area. Therefore, more money and hard planning needs to be devoted to helping workers to move to new jobs within the regions and to increasing facilities for training and retraining at all ages.
Another big and difficult aspect of the development region policy is the question whether aid to the regions should be more concentrated or more widely spread. I cannot help recalling my experience at the Ministry of Labour, 10 years ago, when I was appalled by the limitations placed upon us by the rigidity of the old scheduled development area system as it then existed. It made it politically extremely difficult to deschedule a square mile of territory, and correspondingly created a resistance to scheduling new areas which needed special help as quickly as we should have done. It was that rigidity which led to our next concept of development districts, which had the advantages of speed and flexibility. However, it also carried the danger of forcing one to look at problems in too narrow a context.
Therefore, the Conservative Government, in their last few years of office, developed the new approach, under the particular leadership of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State for Scotland and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) by looking at the problems of a region as a whole, but

focussing help on selected growth points within it which had particular advantages for industrial expansion and growth, whose effects we felt would then spread out and encourage the development of the rest of the region.
We are still sure that this was the right and progressive approach and that the present Government have been wrong in reversing that trend by scheduling much wider areas. Whatever they may say, this is bound to dilute effort and help to increase the unpredictability of assistance. It has one other important disadvantage. We believe that it will make the radical improvements in infrastructure extremely expensive, to the extent of being too expensive to be carried out effectively—

Mr. John P. Mackintosh: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Interventions make for long speeches. Many hon. Members wish to speak.

Mr. Carr: Because of points of order and interventions, I have given way several times and I hope that the hon. Member will forgive me.
I turn, finally, to the Green Paper which was produced for discussion by the Government a week or two ago. We are wholly in sympathy with its purpose. We think it right that it should be carefully considered and I do not want to pronounce any final judgment on it today. However, I have some critical questions to put. The attractions of the proposal are obvious, but it is equally important, before embarking on a radical new scheme of this kind to give thought to its possible dangers. We see a number of serious ones which we think should be carefully considered.
First, it seems to us to compound all the faults of the S.E.T., to which I have referred, and to build fresh anomalies into them. Secondly, we cannot help wondering whether a labour subsidy on a scale which might be as much as £2 per week per man might foster an inefficient use of manpower and lead, for example, to the hoarding of skilled workers in their present firms. These are both dangers which should be looked squarely in the face and carefully considered.
We also feel that it could mean that a firm in a development area need not be


even reasonably efficient to compete successfully with a much more efficient one elsewhere in the country. We genuinely believe that this could lead to economic weakening as well. This, too, should be considered.
It might be held that those disadvantages would not apply if the employment premium were known to be only temporary, but if it were thought by industry to be only temporary this would have the drawback of unpredictability. This would weaken its power as an incentive to attract new firms to the regions. At the very least, it would be necessary, in our view, to state in advance that the premium could not be cut off suddenly, but would be tapered gradually under well defined circumstances.
The last and, perhaps, most important question of all about it is whether this premium would be the best way of spending an extra £100 million a year in the development regions. It might be a good way, but would it be the best way? If we are to spend annually an extra sum of this magnitude, might we not do more to stimulate both existing and new industry by spending it on the improvement of infrastructure and amenities, which, as I have stressed, we regard as of being of particular importance?
Moreover, if help is to be give to industrial companies for a limited period, is it not better to give it for the first few highly expensive years of a new enterprise than for an arbitrary five years or any other period to both old and new firms alike?
I have tried, in the second part of my speech, to put forward a number of serious thoughts which the House should examine in approaching this problem. I must return in my concluding sentences, however, to our strong feeling that the Government, despite their words and promises, are failing in their regional policy. When we look at the Government's attempts at regional policy, it seems to us that, as in many other fields, they have tried to apply a lot of specific remedies while getting the general treatment wrong.
What is really required is to get the general economic trends resulting from overall economic policies working with, instead of against, the particular remedies

for the local problems. It seems to us that the Government have got the economic tide running in the wrong direction and then are frantically adopting all sorts of aids to help them to try to swim against the tide.
In our view, only when we get an overall policy in which the incentives of taxation, the pressures of competition, the structure of industrial relations and the trade unions and the attack on restrictive practices, wherever they may be, are all working in the direction of a high-earning, high-efficiency, expanding economy, shall we get the basic conditions in which special help for the less prosperous regions will enable them to grow and to prosper.

4.34 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State to the Department of Economic Affairs (Mr. Peter Shore): I beg to move to leave out from 'House' to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
'regrets the failure of the previous Conservative administrations to tackle adequately the deep seated economic problems of the less prosperous regions and welcomes the energetic measures taken by Her Majesty's Government in the past two years to achieve a better economic balance between the regions on a permanent basis'.
Of the many suggestions and criticisms—and I hope to deal with the criticisms as I proceed with my speech—made by the right hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr), the one which I found most helpful was his suggestion that more work should be done in studying the experience of firms which have gone into development areas. I think that far too little field work is done into the actual practice of Government policy. I would consider not only the experience of firms which have actually moved but would like to see more done to examine the reasons why many firms remain in their present locations when, on the face of it at least, there would appear to be many advantages for them to move. I assure the right hon. Gentleman, therefore, that on that point at least, I shall look most seriously at his suggestion.
The development areas taken together represent something like half the total geographical area of the United Kingdom. They include virtually the whole of Scotland and Wales, as well as the Northern region, Merseyside and the South-West.


Those areas contain no less than 20 per cent. of the country's population.
Nobody, I think, will deny the point made in our Amendment that this problem is deep-seated. Certainly, as long as I can remember—although I admit that I am not the oldest Member of the House—the problem of high unemployment in the development areas has been with us. We have advanced since the 1930s when—it is almost incredible now to think back on them—the figures of unemployment in the development areas, or depressed, distressed or special areas as they were then called, stood at a level of over 20 per cent. for a number of years.
Although that has passed, however—and thank heaven that it has—apart from the single decade of the 1940s, of war, socialism and the Labour Government, the problem of differentially and unacceptably high unemployment in the development areas has been with us. I do not think that anyone would disagree with that. Nor would I have thought that anyone would disagree with the point made in our Amendment that successive Conservative Governments have failed to solve this problem. I shall be brief, perhaps mercifully brief, on this point.
I would simply draw to the attention of the House that throughout the whole of the 1950s and the early 1960s, the extent of unemployment in the development areas as compared with the rest of the United Kingdom has been of the order of two and a half times to three times as much. Secondly, throughout this period, there has been a heavy migration of labour from the areas of high unemployment to other parts of the country.
It is one thing to talk, as the right hon. Member for Mitcham has done, about movement, as it were, intra-regionally. No one will dispute that this is necessary and is likely to continue. What we have had over virtually the whole period of the 1950s and the early 1960s, however, has been a movement inter-regionally, nearly all of it focusing on London and the South-East and, of course, the Midland areas as well. Indeed, the great mass of new work has been concentrated in those areas in that period.
It is important to bring this other side of the coin into sight because we are not dealing simply with problems of un-

employment, great as they are, in the development areas, but also, in any proper regional policy, with the problems of congestion and over-crowding in the London area and in other areas in the Midlands and South as well. We have that aspect to think of, and when one takes into account migration as well as the unemployment figures, one can see the scale of the problems with which we are faced.
Those who have read the Green Paper will see that we have there set out the actual experience of the development areas and the rest of the country in relation to unemployment over the period since 1959, and the point I want to emphasise is that even in periods of boom in the rest of the country—periods such as that in 1961, and even that in 1965–66—unemployment figures in the development areas have been three times as great as in the rest of the country.
It is true to say that even in periods of high employment nationally, the development areas have never known full employment. When we look at the figures for 1961 and 1965, we find that the unemployment figure in the development areas in both years was 2·8 per cent.—and those are the best years one can find for those areas. I would simply make the obvious point that if the rest of the country were to experience unemployment of 2·8 per cent. in the best years, let alone in the worst years, it would be considered to be intolerable and we would all be under very great pressure to find remedial measures.
I make this somewhat elaborate introduction to the subject because I want the House to get last July's measures in perspective. Those measures clearly will not help the problem of regional unemployment, but it is absolutely wrong to allege that the problems we have been talking about have been caused by those measures. The problems long antedate the measures and are problems of a quite different order. It is equally true to say, on the record of our experience, that it is not enough simply to try to run the rest of the economy even in a state of boom in the hope that this will bring full employment in all the regions. It has not done so in the past, and I see no reason to believe that it will do so in the future.
What are the problems with which we are dealing? There are probably three main influences at work. I need not say much about them, because the House is


pretty familiar with them. First, the areas are characterised by a structure in industry that is very much dependent on the older basic industries. Those industries have been contracting, are still contracting, and their contraction has not been sufficiently offset by the introduction of new industry.
Secondly, they are often areas where there is considerable environmental inadequacy. That is partly the scar of the first Industrial Revolution to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, but also in areas where populations remain rather static there has been a lack of real development building generally and new services such as we find in the South and elsewhere, where there has been considerable advance of development.
The third factor, which is very important, is what we have all come to recognise, not just in this country but in other countries, as the pull of the Metropolis. That is very powerful, and in Britain, where our Metropolis is both the governmental capital and the commercial capital, this pull appears to be extremely strong.
Taking account of those factors, all one can say is that if one simply allows a market economy to operate in a more or less unregulated way the disadvantages which face the development areas are bound to increase. There is therefore a need for very strong policies to defeat those disadvantages. I will not make too much of it, but I think that the Opposition have in the past been very uncertain about their own policies for the development areas. They have found it very difficult to make up their minds whether the right way to deal with the problem was to intervene strongly against the workings of the market economy or whether it was not better on economic grounds to allow for the movement of population in the belief that industry naturally tends to go to the places of maximum advantage.
I will not say that this view has always been held, but there is the view—and I think that it has been an important element in the thinking of right hon. Gentlemen opposite—that it is wrong to do more than the minimum, because of the dangerous consequences, as they see it, to economic efficiency, of offsetting the disadvantages of the development areas.

In a debate some five years ago, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Flint, West (Mr. Birch) put the point very clearly when he said:
I never thought it made very much sense to subsidise firms to go to uneconomic locations. I believe that we shall bitterly regret that in the end. …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th July, 1961; Vol. 645, c. 459.]
That is a school of thought.
We are sceptical about that approach. Our own approach is different. We do not believe that location decisions about industry are often—or, at least, always—taken on rational economic grounds. The more one studies industry and location decisions the less clear are the motives that determine whether a firm moves to a certain area or, particularly, whether it stays where it is. We are also influenced by the thought that even when the decision about the location of industry is taken by a private firm, which has weighed up private benefits against private costs, this is not always the same as the arithmetical weighing up of social benefits and social costs. Indeed, if the social costs and social benefits factor had been taken into account, a number of decisions affecting location—certainly in London and the South-Eastern region—might never have been made.
I therefore put the point quite clearly that we are quite unashamedly interventionist in our approach to development area policy, and in using maximum powers to get a location of industry policy which will even out the differences in unemployment in different parts of the country—

Mr. Stanley R. McMaster: Does that statement mean that the Government are now abandoning the emphasis on mobility which they had in the National Plan?

Mr. Shore: I do not think we ever put an emphasis on mobility that in any way contradicts the point I am making about the need to close the gap between unemployment in the favoured regions and unemployment in the development regions.
I have outlined our approach to the problem, and I would now like to say what, as I see it, are the eight, as it were, main points of policy that we have either innovated or developed during our period of office so far. The first, and perhaps


most important, is that we have attempted to introduce into this country comprehensive regional planning. By that I mean two things, first a national policy for the regions which attempts to take into account not only the distribution of industry and the pattern of economic development, but also the growth and location of population. Another aspect of our regional planning policy has been to set up machinery, boards and councils, and to get them to undertake studies in some depth of their own regions up to 1981. That is the initial period we have asked them to study.
This is a most helpful development in policy because we are no longer leaving it, as it were, to Whitehall to think ahead about the regions. We are bringing into the picture for the first time some of the best people we can find to continue to study their own regions in the belief that they may know more about their problems than people not actually residing there. The advantages which I think we can gain from this are that we can get a picture not only of what is happening today, tommorrow or next year, but of the actual pattern of development, what is growing and what is declining in particular regions, and therefore evolve medium-term and longer-term strategies which may help us in future to prevent the very developments we are now finding so difficult to counter and offset in the areas of high unemployment.
The second thing we have done is to use much more strongly powers over industrial locations. The story there is clear. I simply remind the House that in the period 1961–64, the best years from the point of view of the party opposite, 26 per cent. of i.d.c.s were issued in favour of the development areas. In 1965 and 1966 that percentage rose to 34 per cent. That reflects the energy and drive particularly of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. I also mention an astonishing omission from the policies of right hon. Gentlemen opposite in previous years. We have extended i.d.c.s to cover the location of offices as well as industrial buildings. This is a development of major importance.
Thirdly, I turn to the investment grants. I do not want to go over the whole battlefield of investment grants versus free de-

preciation and investment allowances, but there seem to be two reasons—although we cannot prove this as it is too soon to prove it; these measures are too recent—why investment grants have advantages. One is in the evidence which the N.E.D.C. produced. The right hon. Member for Mitcham will recall that late in 1964, or early in 1965, their Report showed the amount of understanding of the existing tax incentive system shown by firms to whom, after all, it was addressed. While I would not want to overstress the conclusions, it was pretty clear that a very large number of firms to whom the advantages of this tax system were directed were simply unable to understand its advantages. The investment grants system is far more simple, more direct and more likely to be effective.

Mr. J. Bruce-Gardyne: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Chief Officer of the Board of Trade for Scotland has recently commented that firms in Scotland seem to be unaware of the operations of the investment grant system? Does that correspond with what he has been saying?

Mr. Shore: Although I did not want to take it in this particular order, that brings me to a very important point in our policy. That is the giving of publicity to these aids. This has been a very important, but somewhat neglected, factor in previous attempts to make industry aware of these benefits. It is no good having policies if people do not know about them. The advertising which has recently gone into putting across the advantages of the investment grants system and of other benefits available to development areas is extremely important.
Before the hon. Member for South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) intervened, I was about to make another point in favour of the investment grants system. This other quite commonsense advantage over the previous system is that for many new firms and firms undertaking quite expensive and perhaps initially unprofitable expenditures in development areas there is the certainty that they will actually get the grant, whereas under the previous system they had to make profits before they could enjoy any of the allowances to be set against them.
I turn to the fourth plank of the policy we have pursued. That is the great


increase in advance factory programmes. Here again the record speaks for itself. Between 1959 and 1964 something like 49 advance factories were announced under the previous Administration. In the last two years 94 advance factories have been announced in four separate programmes. The details for which the right hon. Member asked I cannot give at the moment, but I shall see if my right hon. Friend can supply them later.
The next point I stress, which again brings home the energy which has gone into development area policy, is the use of the various financial measures under the Local Employment Acts. Here again the contrast is quite notable. In the three financial years 1961–64 spending was at the rate of £23 million a year and in the last three years it has been at the rate of £45 million a year. That is a fantastic increase in a three-year period.
The last point I make about our existing policies is very important indeed. It is what we are doing to increase training and training programmes in the development areas. Certainly a very helpful scheme was introduced by the previous Administration. It came into effect on 1st September, 1964, which might have been thought a little late. Nevertheless, it was a very good scheme to give a direct grant in development areas to firms in respect of workers they had under training. It has been a great success. We improved the grant, as we thought we ought, in April, 1966. The number who have taken advantage of it is quite striking. In 1965 it was 15,000 and in 1966 it was no fewer than 27,000. My preliminary figures for the first quarter of this year suggest that the rate of increase is continuing.
That adds up to a formidable programme. The right hon. Gentleman invited me to look ahead. I will say something about how we see things for the future. The right hon. Gentleman took up the point, which those of us who have read the speech of his right hon. Friend the Shadow Chancellor were already familiar with, about the effect of the measures taken last July as compared with the measures taken in July, 1961. He and his right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod) made the same point, that, because unemployment had risen more quickly in the period 1966–67 than it had in 1961–62, there was

good reason for thinking that it would go on getting worse, as it certainly got worse in 1962–63.
It is not wise to be over-mechanical in comparing particular periods and the sequence of events. I do not accept that what has happened in one period must necessarily follow in another. I am reinforced in this view because one of the great differences between 1961–62 and 1966–67 was that in the earlier period the then Government had virtually no regional policy operating.
If anyone has any doubt about this, I will remind the House of the words used by the then Chancellor, the right hon. and learned Member the Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) in his July speech:
The Government's local employment policy has so far succeeded, that, when the projects already in hand come into production, virtually only in Scotland and Northern Ireland should there be a serious lack of employment opportunities.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th July, 1961; Vol. 645, c. 436.]
That is what the right hon. and learned Member for Wirral said in the summer of 1961. It will therefore not surprise the House to recall that there was virtually no energy, and certainly no new policies, in train at that period which could help to deal with the problem of regional unemployment, which certainly developed fast durin gthe two years that followed. In the light of what I have told the House no one will say that we have not already begun to develop strongly a whole series of policies designed to help the development areas.
Although I would accept that there are no certainties in economic policy, obviously, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer made clear, we are watching the situation closely. The Budget allows for very considerable increases in public expenditure, a factor which was not available during the post-1961–62 period. We have also given our estimates of the demand in the economy, which we expect to be rising.
I would not conclude from all this that this is all that needs to be done. This is not the view of the Government. We have addressed our minds to the question of what further must be done. We have not on this occasion, nor on many others, had to wait for an Opposition Motion asking for further measures before we


have acted in an attempt to anticipate the problems we see ahead.
We put forward the Green Paper for the consideration, not only of the House, but also of the N.E.D.C. and the regional councils. The basic suggestion in the Green Paper is that a premium of £1 to £2 a week shall be paid for male employees in manufacturing industries in the development areas. There will be corresponding payments of a regional premium for women workers and young people. The total cost, at what is estimated to be a medium figure of 30s. per employee, will be £100 million a year. This substantial figure will more than double the financial assistance at present available to the development areas under the expanded programmes we are pursuing.
I have said that we have invited comment on the proposal. It is not for me to make any judgment this afternoon, because the Government are prepared to listen, and will listen with very great care, to the various points which have been put forward. I will not attempt, because it would take me too long, to answer all the important points put by the right hon. Member. In particular, his point as to whether there is a danger of encouraging inefficiency must be taken head on. We must weigh up the effect on the inefficient use of labour due to bad use of labour, due to restrictive labour practices, due to the effect of high unemployment, and the continued high unemployment, in the development areas. People cannot be persuaded easily to abandon these practices. I know that the right hon. Gentleman, with his experience at the Ministry of Labour, will look with some sympathy at this point.
I pose three questions which may be relevant in considering the Selective Employment Tax regional premium. First, is this the most effective way we can find of helping to reduce unemployment in the development areas? I have no doubt that we shall hear a number of views on this during the course of the next few weeks.
There is one aspect which deserves a special mention. Unlike some of our other proposals, such as the now 45 per cent. investment grant for new machinery and plant in development areas, this proposal would considerably

help labour-intensive industry. It would complement the assistance we are giving to capital-intensive industry with assistance to labour-intensive industry. Labour-intensive industries have the effect of mopping up a great deal more unemployment than capital-intensive industries.
I want to take head on the very misleading suggestion that labour-intensive industries somehow or other are not modern industries, but are industries of the past. This is a great mistake. There are many very modern industries—I am thinking of many in engineering, particularly in electronics—which are certainly labour-intensive.

Mr. Henry Clark: Does not the Joint Under-Secretary agree that labour-intensive industries are intrinsically unstable in the total quantity of labour they employ? The labour force of a labour-intensive industry is varied according to the business coming forward from year to year. Labour-intensive industries do not provide what the development areas want, which is stable employment. The sack from labour-intensive industries is much more common than it is from capital-intensive industries.

Mr. Shore: I would hesitate to generalise about that. The important question is which labour-intensive industry one is thinking of. The point I made is that there are several labour-intensive industries which one can look upon as growth industries and which, therefore, one could encourage in this way.
The second question relevant in considering our proposal is this. In finding ways to help the development areas, can we produce methods which avoid overheating the more prosperous regions and do not have adverse effects on the balance of payments? Obviously, this is an important question. The short answer is that it is possible if one can divert demand from other regions, the more prosperous regions, to the development areas.
This can never be a straightforward operation. One cannot, as it were, expect that the amount of demand which one generates in the development areas will be precisely the same as the amount of demand diverted from other areas. Nevertheless, there are good reasons for believing that the effect of this proposal


will be to divert demand. The House will understand why this should be so when it considers the way in which the regional employment premium is expected to work. It is expected to reduce costs and, therefore, prices of goods within the development areas. In so far as it does that, it will divert demand because industry in the development areas will be more competitive and will divert demand from other regions in the country.

Dr. Hugh Gray: It seems that my hon. Friend talks all the time of dichotomies, comparing the prosperous areas with the development areas. Will he say what the Government intend to do for the less prosperous areas, like East Anglia, which fall between those two extremes?

Mr. Shore: In the context if this discussion on the regional employment premium, I shall not attempt to answer that. All I say to my hon. Friend is that I fully accept the need, within the context of regional policies, not merely to have a strong policy to help the development areas but also to have policies which take account of the needs of other regions. Clearly, although we tend to contrast the Midlands, London and the South-East with the development areas, we are always aware of the differences which exist and the fact that there is, as it were, a middle band of regions of intermediate prosperity. One of the great advantages which we gain from our regional studies is a clear picture of the problems and prospects for these intermediate regions as well as for the other two groups of which I have spoken.

Sir Douglas Glover: In following the Green Paper theme, the hon. Gentleman should realise that every area, however defined, has a boundary. What is only too likely to happen is that, for example, a brickworks on one side of the line will get the premium and a brickworks only five miles away on the other side will eventually go out of business. There will be a new development area before very long.

Mr. Shore: The hon. Gentleman knows that, no matter what scheme is introduced, if it has a frontier of eligibility, so to speak, one will always face the problem of those who are on one side or the other. This arises in the whole field of Government policy. I can see no easy

way out of it, unless one were to have a somewhat more graduated approach, a spread of benefits. I do not rule that out, but it is not something which I wish to pursue at the moment.
The last question I ask myself on the subject of a regional employment premium is this. Can we do whatever we do for the regions in a way which avoids the necessity to raise taxation? On that, I remind the House that, on a Keynsian analysis at any rate, it is perfectly legitimate to go in for deficit financing if an area is under-employed and one wishes to bring into use resources which are otherwise unused. What we are trying to do on a regional or development area basis is what we are all familiar with on a national basis. We are, in a sense, trying to reflate in order to increase the output of a particular region.
We look upon the proposal for a regional employment premium as a medium-term measure. The Green Paper suggests a period of five years during which, should the proposal be adopted, benefits would build up, but one should not forget that, as soon as it is introduced, some benefit will accrue.
We are far from complacent about this problem. I am sure that my speech has not indicated any complacency. We certainly do not feel it. We are looking at all the measures which we ourselves have introduced or intensified to see what further help we can give and what further strengthening is possible. We shall also consider the suggestions put to us during this debate. The Government regard the problem of unemployment and a differentially high rate in the development areas, together with the wider problem of regional imbalance of which it is part, as one of the major problems which it is our task to overcome and remedy.

5.18 p.m.

Mr. Henry Clark: This is a thoroughly worthwhile debate and I very much welcome the opportunity to speak now. The general problem in the regions was made perfectly clear by my right hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr). The Government's Amendment, which draws attention to the "energetic measures" which they have taken to alleviate the difference between the various regions, is


almost laughable. There is no question that the difference between the less prosperous and the more prosperous regions has grown substantially under the Labour Government.
I shall restrict my comments as much as possible so that other hon. Members may take part, directing them almost entirely to the Green Paper, "A Proposal for a Regional Employment Premium". To begin with, I welcome the Green Paper as, as far as I know—I am no great Parliamentary historian—a precedent.
As a back-bencher, I have always wondered what the point was in the House discussing a Blue Book, because in nearly every case it was something on which the Government intended to take no action for several years. That was unfortunately only too true whether under the present Government or the Conservative Government. I also wonder about the point of back-benchers discussing a White Paper, because this usually contains clearly-defined Government policy, and no matter what back-benchers say, no changes are likely to take place in the policy. It remains to be seen whether the Green Paper justifies a new colour, whether the Government will take note of the discussions in the House and elsewhere and come forward with a policy which is a compromise between the various suggestions that have been made. It is usually easy to get a compromise on a suggestion concerning which the Government intend to spend about £100 million.
When the First Secretary introduced the Green Paper I rose to give my immediate reaction. I welcome the premium, but wondered what he could do to stop the growth in the development areas of mushroom industries springing up to take an economic opportunity which only arose for a short time, using secondhand equipment, taking the employment premium and drifting out of business in a year or two. That is not a false fear. We have had considerable experience of that in my own less prosperous area in Northern Ireland. In terms of the development regions one can almost always talk from the particular to the general. I can remember a number of artificial silk factories which opened up in Northern Ireland before the war,

made their money and disappeared like ships in the night. That will be all the easier with a premium of this sort.
But, having looked at it, I am beginning to come round to believing that this employment premium may be the right solution. It is simple. I believe that one can be far too subtle in giving incentives to new industries. I think that a mistake of the present Government in many of the things they have done is that they have changed well-established customs for deep and subtle reasons of their own which have been completely lost on the rest of the country. But there are snags. Within the development areas there are local regional problems, and in Northern Ireland we face them to a greater extent, perhaps, than any other area except Scotland.
I am sorry not to see the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) here today. For certain political reasons of his own, he is for ever telling us that the area in Northern Ireland west of the River Bann suffers heavier unemployment than others. That is not true, and, to use a phrase used by a friend in discussing this question, the facts of economic geography depend little on whether one is Catholic or Protestant. They have nothing to do with whether one is east or west of the Bann, or with the political affiliations of the people. It is the prosperity of the area within 25 miles of Belfast and the high levels of unemployment outside that area that matter. That "contour line" of employment runs exactly half-way through my constituency.
In Ballymena even today the level of employment matches well up to the ideas of what full employment were considered to be before and soon after the war. But 20 miles further north in Ballymoney one finds an unemployment rate of about 12–15 per cent. We have a serious problem there. I do not see that an overall premium of £1 or £2 a week in Northern Ireland will do a great deal to alleviate that very serious problem. Perhaps it will be possible to have slight variations within development areas.
An overall premium of £1 or £2 a week will not solve another serious problem, that of transporting workers to their places of employment. Partly because of the problem I have just described, and partly because we have a rural population


which is only now beginning to go to the towns to work in industry, many people throughout Northern Ireland travel between 20 and 40 miles to and from work every day, and all too often they pay bus fares of 30s., 35s. a week and—at times—more than £2 a week, from an average wage of only £8 or £9 a week.
When one considers the incentive of unemployment benefits compared with travelling and working in conditions in which one brings home barely £5 a week, one sees that there is a very fair excuse for those who are desribed as "unemployable" and "work-shy". I have taken this matter up more than once with the Treasury, when it says that it is impossible to give tax assistance towards the bus fares of those people for travelling to work. But, oddly enough, if a firm runs its own bus the costs of taking workers to work are tax-deductible. That is very hard on the small companies, which do not bring enough workers from one direction to be able to afford to run a bus. The Government should carefully examine that problem in terms of Income Tax and Corporation Tax, for it is one that a £1 or £2 premium does not go far to solve.
Another serious problem which we know in Northern Ireland, and which is typical throughout the development areas, is that of a shortage of skilled workers. Where many men are coming off the farms or out of old-fashioned textile mills and heavy industry such as shipyards, we are often short of the necessary skills for modern light engineering which is the general trend of development in those areas. With a premium of £1 or £2 a week, there will be every incentive for skilled men to leave their trades and take up semiskilled work in one of the new factories, as they all too often do because such high wages have been paid in some of those factories. With £2 a week to play with, such firms will be able to attract even more skilled men from the service industries, which are the real infrastructure for industry.
If one is trying to create the right atmosphere for industry, the kind of firms that one wants to start with are small engineering contracting firms and electrical contracting firms, and one wants plumbers and carpenters who can help the new factories get going. One of the

reasons why industrial development takes place so well within 25 miles of Belfast is that if an electric motor burns out in a factory in that area it can be replaced within half a day. But further away the factory may be stopped for a whole day before the motor is repaired. We must build up the right sort of service industries for industry, so that we can get industrial growth. I do not see that the scheme will benefit those people; it will make it harder for them to keep their skilled labour.
It is all very well for the Under-Secretary to say that we want growth industries in the development areas. Of course we do; that is self-evident. But every industry must be flexible, and there is no question that in the labour-intensive industry it is the labour force that is flexible, and the industry is continually taking on and sacking people. I had a most unfortunate experience with a well-known radio company, which one would have thought at first sight to be a growth industry. Its labour force fluctuated between 1,200 and 800 over a period of 10 years, and when its factory finally closed down there was almost a celebration in the town because we had got rid of an industry which had lost the affection of local people. It was replaced in the same factory by a far more stable industry.
There is no question that the labour-intensive industries which may be attracted by the £2 premium cannot only create a great deal of unhappiness and instability by taking on and firing at regular intervals but can be dogs in the manger and delay the development of the capital intensive growth industries, which we want.
We have a really worthwhile proposition here. We are glad to see that the Government have realised just what a major problem unemployment in the development areas is. They have put forward a solution of perhaps the right order to begin to solve this question. They intend to spend, if this is carried out, about £10 million in Northern Ireland. Can we have an assurance that if this money is spent it will not be to the prejudice of the other schemes already being carried out to bring industry to these areas? There is no doubt that the road programme, which is so vital for the spread of industry all over Northern Ireland, is being inhibited by a shortage of funds and loan


capital, which is usually supplied to Northern Ireland by the Treasury here.

Mr. Shore: I would like to give the hon. Gentleman the assurance that the regional employment premium to which he referred is being considered by the Government as a measure additional to the present range of policies and expenditures in development areas.

Mr. Clark: The Minister has not gone quite so far as I would have liked him to. I understood that this was an addition, but there is no getting out of it that the squeeze policies are inhibiting some of our capital expansion programmes, particularly the road programme. The Northern Ireland Government are being held to their original estimates for new roads, and not to those estimates plus the increase in costs which has taken place in the last two years. I should like the Government to take note of that and accept that if we are to spread full employment beyond the 25-mile range, we shall need a steady expenditure on roads.
I have discussed this suggestion in a reasonably impartial way. It is no less than the development areas need. We have borne the brunt of the squeeze and the economic policies of the last two years. It is rather tragic. Having lived with the unemployment problem in Northern Ireland all my life, I was in a position two years ago to say with some confidence that by 1970 we might have the problem beaten. I had real hopes then that we would soon get the level of unemployment in Northern Ireland permanently below 5 per cent.
We had made considerable progress. For instance, the latest census figures show that we have cut the net emigration from Northern Ireland by about 3,000 a year and the population is becoming more stable. The tragedy came with the April figures, this spring, when unemployment should be on the decrease. The figure for April was 9·4 per cent. of the adult male population unemployed—nearly 10 per cent. That is over 1,000 more men unemployed in Northern Ireland today than in March; against the seasonal trend! If one looks at the policies of the Labour Government one does well to remember that those 24,000 new jobs for civil servants in Whitehall would virtually solve the problem of unemployment in Northern Ireland.

5.34 p.m.

Mr. George Lawson: I am not quite making a maiden speech, but it is a long time since I spoke. I am happy to participate on a subject about which I and many of my colleagues have been interested for a long time.
It is rather interesting to hear the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Mr. Henry Clark) tell us that he believes that the Government regard it as a matter of major policy that we should be concerned with unemployment in the development regions. Let me tell him that I, and all of my colleagues on this side of the House, have been concerned with this question virtually ever since we could think politically. In many ways the movement that I represent came into existence as a protest against the kind of conditions under which we had to live. That there has been so much concern with this problem and the finding of a solution is not entirely due to us, but it is in large measure due to the pressures that we have exercised over the years. It is significant that today there is near unanimity.
The hon. Gentleman spoke of talking impartially about a subject such as this. It is significant that in a comparatively short time so many changes have taken place in the general thinking of the people of this country, notably among Members of this House. It is not so long ago since hon. Members opposite, who were then on this side of the House, regarded it as absurd that we should put forward so many suggestions about how Government intervention was necessary in order to deal adequately with this problem. We have constantly had to press the idea that under the kind of conditions existing in so many of what are now called the development areas the natural factor was so much against the area that Government intervention was necessary.
On many occasions we described the many forms that this Government intervention could take. It is a little ironical that we should be subjected to something akin to a vote of censure—we who have stood for this kind of thing—from the party opposite which has always condemned it. I do not blame hon. Members opposite; I am happy that they have accepted general responsibility for the shaping of the economy. But it is ironical that it is we who should be


attacked for not being 100 per cent. successful in the measures that we are introducing.
It is very well known on this side of the House, and it is becoming increasingly well known, that there have been two great economic problems confronting our society over the past 20 to 30 years. Indeed, the problems were there many years previously, but they have become more clearly understood since then.
The first problem is unemployment. The fact that we have been so relatively successful in solving the unemployment problem has brought into being a second, related problem. In other words, the solution of one problem gives rise to another, which is how to control inflation, how to control our costs. This is largely the hook upon which this nation is stuck, if one can be stuck upon a hook. The very success that we have had in solving the first problem, although it was not done entirely by us—it was a national effort but we spearpointed it—has brought into being the second. There is no easy answer to this. They have to be seen as problems which must be solved jointly. Knowledge about how to handle our economy is still very inadequate; this is something that we all recognise.
If I have a criticism to level at my own Front Bench it is that in the past it talked far too confidently about what it could do. I am prepared to make that criticism. Its intentions were sound and are sound yet. Sometimes when one has to handle them the facts are more difficult than in perhaps appreciated, but there is no harm in this. There is no harm in reaching out for a solution of these problems. We at least were concerned with them; we did not have to be driven on all the time to do something, as was the case with the party opposite. We were driven on by the belief that these things had to be done and could be done. They will be done and they are in the course of being done.
I am more concerned with the problems of my own area and of Scotland than with the general set-up. I welcome the general acceptance by hon. Members opposite of Government responsibility for action in solving the problems of development areas. However, it is important to ensure that this intervention by the State is not just intervention on behalf of areas

which are unable to look after themselves, areas which will go down and down because of some weakness in the people there, or for some other reason. We should ensure that the intervention is not called for merely because of social purposes, good though they are. It is increasingly being appreciated that the intervention for which we are asking, and for which we have been asking for a long time, is intervention which is economically advantageous to the nation.
For example, the business man does not always know what is best. The gibe "Whitehall knows best" is familiar to us. Very often Whitehall knows very much better than other parts of the country what is good for the nation. [Interruption.] If hon. Members are challenging me, why are they taking part in the debate? Are they not asking for more Government intervention, and does not that mean acting through some such agency as Whitehall?
If the business man is left to locate his business or industry where it suits him, that may not always be to even his best advantage. For example, if there is a large market, he may move into such an area and thus cause more and more congestion and not necessarily create more and more efficiency.
It is true of the Scots and the Welsh and others that our industry has been drawn away to other areas. National sentiment does not usually matter in the making of profits. I am prepared to say that Scotland suffers first from the Scots—perhaps this is a reply to the Scottish Nationalists—in that the Scots were as ready as anybody else to pull up their roots and move to where it seemed to, or did, profit them most. We have had many examples of Scottish businesses failing to keep abreast of technical developments elsewhere, and we have had many cases when Scottish wages have not been as high as those elsewhere. That might be regarded as part of the failure of Scottish trade unions to keep abreast of what was happening elsewhere. There are many sides to this subject.
The point is that if the decision is left to the isolated group or individual, then that group or individual will move to the area which seems to it or to him to be best, and while that may sometimes be for the general good, often it is not. That is when the necessity for the overall


intervention of the State becomes increasingly apparent.
The State can make mistakes and some of its interventions may result in bad development, but that is only the State trying out its apprentice hand. We ought not to expect every decision in the State's planning and every intervention by the State to be wholly successful. The State is very "green" very raw, very immature, very lacking in skill and know-how in this kind of thing, but it will improve.
In my area there are divided approaches to the problem. The right hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) asked whether we ought to dilute aid over wider areas or concentrate it. I believe that we need to consider more closely the natural features of an area, its natural advantages, sometimes its disadvantages, and thus encourage the kind of development that is wanted. We could become more and more selective and not just offer a general blanket of aid to certain areas.
What is now fairly apparent is that most British firms which go to development areas do so because they are more or less driven out of their own areas. They are denied the right to develop a factory, for example, in their own area, and so they move to a development area. But they go reluctantly, not having weighed all the pros and cons, because they are driven out and because the shortest answer to their problem that they can find is to move to a development area. We have not gone into the question of why firms move at all, but it is fairly safe to say that the processes are those which do not permit a firm to expand where it is. If that is why a firm moves, then we should be thinking not so much of a general blanket of attractions, but rather in terms of what areas contain, of what are their deficiencies or advantages, and how we can encourage certain types of development in certain areas.
Let us take the Clyde area as an example. A number of my colleagues and I were recently the guests of the Clyde Trust, which took us down the river and showed us a variety of problems with which it was concerned and how it was dealing with them. At that time it was very much concerned with the problems of the container berth and the container ship. We discussed whether

there was something about the whole of the Clyde region which permitted us to think of its possible development optimistically. We asked whether there were factors in the area which would always be against us, despite what might be done, so that the area would always be a second-class or third-class or even more inferior area.
What we were told was very encouraging. We were told that the Clyde Estuary had a great advantage over virtually any other port area of Great Britain. It has the advantage of sheltered very deep water. The ship of the future—already it is the ship of the present—will increasingly be a huge ship. It may be 100,000 tons, or 150,000 tons, or 200,000 tons—we cannot say what the limits will be. Naturally, these huge ships will be able to use only limited ports and in some respects move in only limited waters.
It is already dangerous for ships of this kind to move up the English Channel. For example, some of the ships coming across the Atlantic have to go right round Scotland to get to Rotterdam. The English Channel is virtually closed, or soon will be, to these very large ships. We were also told that this was becoming increasingly true of the Irish Channel.
That means that the first port for these ships will be in the Clyde, at Greenock, the Tail of the Bank and right up the Clyde to that point. We were told that the largest of these ships could virtually come right up with virtually no alteration to the approaches. This could mean that the huge tanker or the huge container ship could come right across the Atlantic with its first port of call not Europe but Greenock, or the Tail of the Bank, Glasgow. There its cargo could be broken up and placed in smaller ships and even sent to Europe. We can consider the great potentiality of this area in using liner trains, with the liner trains bringing goods from the Midlands of England, for even the heavily populated areas of England might find it cheaper to send their goods up to the Clyde than to some English port.
The Clyde has the advantage of very deep and sheltered water. When these huge ships approach to tie up, they must cut off their power a long way out, and in such circumstances they are badly exposed to heavy weather. In the sheltered


areas of the Clyde there is scarcely any movement of the tide, and a ship can run right in, load and sail again. Alternatively, the cargo can be broken up and sent to other ports. There is a great possibility in the use of liner trains and the new road system carrying big containers across the narrow belt of Scotland to the East coast port of Grangemouth, where the cargo can be reloaded on 1,000-ton ships and sent to the Continent. If we were on our toes we could make this area a Rotterdam.
This is what I mean when I speak of thinking in terms of the possibility of areas. Because of great political pressure, a previous Conservative Cabinet decided that a strip mill would be built at Ravenscraig in my constituency of Motherwell. This is a great asset to industrial Scotland; if it had not been created, the outlook for industrial Scotland would be very bleak indeed. But although this strip mill has been established in Ravenscraig, it is not complete. It is crippled in that it cannot handle a sufficiently broad range of products. It has certain important deficiencies which must be rectified. If they were rectified, I am assured, it could look in the face any comparable mill in the world. It needs the supplementation of a tin-plate mill and a galvanising plant. Given these advantages at Ravenscraig, that area of industrial Scotland would be one of the greatest industrial complexes of Britain and, I believe, of the whole of Europe.
Let me turn to another type of activity. Not everybody wishes to live in an industrial area. On the West coast of Scotland there is a great potentiality in the development of fish farming. People have been interested in it for a long time. It may well be that fish farming on a substantial scale is not yet as economic as we hope it will become. Consider the reaches of sheltered water which could be protected. Already there is a device which can close up the mouth of a loch to fish; an electric current can be passed across the mouth so as to bar fish from entering or leaving. The West of Scotland is one longe series of long sea lochs. I hope that action will be taken on a much larger scale, with State intervention, to assist with this kind of development—not for cheap fish but for expensive fish, such as shell fish, scampi, lobsters, crabs, oysters, plaice and black sole. I might

even add herring. At one time no herring in the world could compare with the herring that came from Loch Fyne. I know something about this. One could tell the Loch Fyne herring just by looking at it. If we could foster the catching of herring such as Loch Fyne herring, and handle them as they should be handled, it would give great potentiality to the area.
I have given two examples of possible industrial development, given Government assistance. We should be thinking about large-scale possibilities, not fiddling little things here and there but large things which should be done. If we think in terms of deliberately shaping our economy, this is what could be done. This approach to shaping our economy is now being accepted. It does not debar what is called private enterprise. Let us have as much enterprise as we can get, but, in addition, all the time there needs to be more and more intelligent study of areas and an intelligent consideration of what can be based upon those areas. Having concluded what it is best to do with an area, let us get down to a serious job. In this way we can re-make Britain—and as a Scotsman I am prepared to include the rest.
I am in no carping mood, but if there is any criticism that can be made of the Conservative Government it is that over the years our country has gone down and down compared with other countries. We have not kept pace. But we have the capacity and the ability if we use it and if we get rid of some of the psychological barriers that stand in the way of our showing that we are as good as anybody else.
There was a time when the Scots used to brag that they ran the Empire and this country. Now far too many of our fellow countrymen are whining about Whitehall. There is a job for us to do, with the assistance of Whitehall. We can make Scotland and Britain—we might even be able to make Ireland—among the most desirable parts of the world in which to live. That is the sort of task in which we should engage.

5.58 p.m.

Mr. J. Bruce-Gardyne: It is a pleasure to hear the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson) restored to full voice after a period of enforced silence. I noticed a change between his


speech and that of the Joint Under-Secretary, his hon. Friend the Member for Stepney (Mr. Shore), and the kind of speeches which were made by the Labour Party when they were in opposition.
The hon. Member said that he detected a change of voice from this side of the House. I beg him to read the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Stepney tomorrow and compare it with some of the speeches which the present Secretary of State for Scotland used to make when he was in opposition. He will find a remarkable change of tone. Suddenly, all these problems have become intractable, and suddenly all the solutions which the Secretary of State had at his fingertips have become difficult; they will now, we are told, take rather a long time, but somehow, some day, it is said, with a great deal of luck, we may get somewhere towards them. It is time that the hon. Member recognised that his right hon. Friends have changed their tone, with all the implications for permanent unemployment that this implies.
I think that in the Chancellor's Budget speech there was only one passage with which I found myself in agreement. That was where he said that if we could even out the disparities in unemployment and in activity rates between different areas of the country the management of our economy would be infinitely facilitated, and would, at the same time, enable us to eliminate some of the difficulties—and, indeed, the miseries—which arise from high levels of unemployment in some of the regions.
How much I agree with that sentiment. That is why this debate seems to me an important and opportune one, so that we can try to see what is happening in the regions and what the outlook, following this deplorable Budget, will be.

Dr. Gray: Is the hon. Member saying that he is in favour of the redistribution of wealth between areas? Is not this a Socialist concept rather than a Tory one?

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: I do not think that the elimination of the disparities in activity rates and levels of unemployment between the different areas is a Socialist, or, indeed, a Tory concept. It is a question of the way in which we manage the economy. I agree with the Chan-

cellor—that was the only point, as I was saying, in which I found myself in agreement with him in his Budget speech—that it would make it very much easier to handle the management of the economy.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr), in his opening speech, asked the Government one very important question, to which we did not have an answer. I hope we shall have an answer from the Secretary of State for Scotland when he sums up the debate tonight. That question was: what is the Government's estimate, in the regions we are discussing today, of the likely levels of unemployment later this year, next autumn, next spring, next year? I hope that the Secretary of State will give us an answer to this question, because it seems to me a vitally important one. If he is honest, I fear that the only answer he can give will be a sombre one.
The Government, as I see it, inherited in Scotland a situation which was looking more optimistic and more hopeful than we had seen for a good many years—because of the actions of the previous Government. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson) referred to the strip mill at Ravenscraig as a decision of a Cabinet, and then, in his generosity, he got around to mentioning that it was a decision of a Conservative Cabinet. That was one of the major steps which the last Conservative Government took. There were other steps, and I need not enumerate them all, but, for instance, the level of the motor car industry in Scotland was stepped up, and there was the pulp mill at Fort William, and very many other major projects which diversified the industrial base in Scotland and, I believe, put the Scottish economy on a far healthier footing than it had had for several years.
The Government have been carried along—or were being carried along—on the momentum of those achievements. During the famous year when they were running the economy as no economy had ever been run before—in the words of the First Secretary—the strains and pressures of over-employment in the South-East, the Midlands and many other parts of England meant that firms thinking in terms of expansion would inevitably strive to expand in Scotland, because


there was nowhere else they could possibly obtain labour. This, too, I think, helped to create a far healthier situation.
What have the Government done with it? The hon. Member for Stepney went over the familiar list which we have had several times in the past from Ministers. The investment grant system, for instance. I interrupted him to point out, according to the Board of Trade's own chief officer in Scotland, what was claimed to be one of the prime attractions of investment grant, that it would be readily understood and accepted by manufacturers, does not appear to be working out. I believe that it is not working out not because there is a shortage of publicity but because at present manufacturers, whether in Scotland or in England, are not in an investing mood, and that is hardly surprising. That is a vitally important point and I want to return to it.
The hon. Gentleman also referred to the stricter system of i.d.c.s introduced by the present Government. Personally, I have never believed that a system of i.d.c.s, whether it is strict or loose, is the ideal way to approach the problem of correcting regional balance. I believe we want more of the carrot and less of the stick, because unlike the hon. Member for Motherwell, I really do not believe that the gentleman in Whitehall knows best, or is ever likely to know best. I believe that the manufacturer is the man who is most likely to know where his operations will be most profitably carried on.
By all means let us give him inducements to move to areas where there is room for him to expand, but I am very doubtful about the wisdom of imposing strictly defined rules through an i.d.c. system for preventing him from expanding where he is, because, apart from anything else, the likely result is not that he will move to Scotland, but that he will not expand at all.
We have heard a lot, too, about advance factories. Certainly, the Government have had a programme for advance factories. I seem to remember, even before becoming a Member of this House, hearing of and reading reports of wonderful speeches which the Secretary of State for Scotland used to make and in which he flayed the policy for advance factories as meaning only jobs in the

pipeline which never materialised at the end. We heard a different tone today.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. William Ross): Not at all.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: The right hon. Gentleman says, "Not at all", but I can remember reports of speeches of his and the complaints we used to have from him about jobs in the pipeline which never materialised. Nowadays, I suppose, so long as it is a planned Socialist pipeline all the jobs will come out at the end.

Mr. Ross: I wonder if the hon. Gentleman would like to quote any one speech in which I took exception to advance factories being built? Any one speech.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: I did not say the right hon. Gentleman took exception to their being built. What I said was that his complaint was always that they meant only jobs in the pipeline and that this was no substitute for Socialist planning, which was to be the panacea to solve our problems.
The Government, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, scrapped the most successful system of free depreciation and the system of investment allowances which concentrated encouragement to investment where it was likely to be profitable. We do not want unprofitable investment in Scotland or in any other of the less privileged parts of the United Kingdom. Unprofitable investment is not desirable and we should not be encouraging it.
My right hon. Friend drew attention to the ominous signs of the icy fingers creeping over the regions once more. It is interesting to note that, at constant prices, even in 1965 the level of manufacturing capacity in Scotland was substantially lower than it was in 1961, the last occasion on which we stamped on the brakes. Of course, the Secretary of State must be aware that the level of emigration was rising to new records. That process has continued. As the hon. Gentleman the Member for Stepney said, we have to tackle the problem of migration between the regions.
It is perfectly true that emigration from Scotland to England has not risen very sharply. What has happened is that there has been an enormous increase in the number of Scots leaving these shores


for good. Under a Labour Government, they prefer infinitely to go to other countries where their talents are better rewarded and better appreciated than they are in England or Scotland.
That was the situation when the Prime Minister came along and stamped on the brake last July. A few years ago, a critique of the Tory Government's economic policy was published, entitled, "Sunshades in October". It is an unfortunate feature of the calendar that, somehow, the application of sunshades often seems to take place in July or at the latest in September.
The simile was clear. Time and again, we have stamped on the brake of the economy when the machine was already running down. We have done it once again and, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, we see now its impact in the regions.
The fall in unemployment in Scotland between January and April of this year has been the smallest for a decade, and the comment of the spokesman of the Scottish Council on last week's unemployment figures was that the comparable trend with the situation in 1962 was unmistakable. It is, except, as my right hon. Friend suggested, that this time the indications are more ominous than they were on that occasion.
What do the Government intend to do? The hon. Member for Stepney said that they had two advantages. He said that there was nothing mechanical about these things and that, just because it happened before, did not mean necessarily that it would happen again. But that is not much consolation to us. On the whole, past experience suggests that it will happen again. He said that the Government were watching the situation closely, but that is not much comfort to us, either, because again, on past experience, we can see that the action is likely to be slow in affecting the levels of unemployment and emigration which we are experiencing in Scotland.
In what was otherwise a totally deplorable speech in the Budget debate, the First Secretary said one thing which was significant and, I think, correct. He agreed that the effect of these successive doses of inflation is slow to work through to the economy of Scotland. We have

by no means seen the peak of unemployment in Scotland this spring. All past indications suggest that the peak must come and will come ineluctably next spring.
Another aspect of the situation which is much more ominous than that which we faced in 1962 is the decline in manufacturing investment. The Government have spent a great deal of time talking about the increases in investment grants and an extra 5 per cent., as if an extra 1s. in the £ on the Government's dole will persuade a manufacturer to invest at a time when he can see no prospects of profitable investment and no hope of being allowed to distribute a profit if he makes one.
To my mind, this is the most serious and alarming aspect of the present situation. As my right hon. Friend pointed out, the Chancellor has admitted that, between now and 1970, not only shall we have a substantially lower rate of expansion, even if the Government's best expectations are fulfilled, than occurred under the previous Conservative Government, but that all the additional wealth which, on the Government's estimation is to be created, is already earmarked for the expansion of the public sector. There is nothing there for manufacturers in Scotland or anywhere else to go for. As I see it, that means that the downturn in investment which we are already facing, whether it he 10 per cent., according to the Board of Trade's latest estimate, or 15 per cent., as other recent independent estimates have suggested, will be prolonged, because there is nothing for manufacturers to go for.
In the February issue of the C.B.I's Industrial Trends, it was shown that manufacturing investment intentions in Scotland had actually been reduced over the previous three months while there had been some recovery in England. That is the way in which the squeeze is hitting Scotland hard, and it is likely to hit her harder as the months go by.
Reference has been made to the Government's proposals for regional employment premiums. I do not believe that that is the right way of giving regional incentives, because, as my right hon. Friend said, we do not want to give an incentive to the wastage and hoarding of labour anywhere. What we want to do is to discourage the wasteful use of labour, above all in the areas of high employment


and overdevelopment such as the South-East and the Midlands. In addition, the regional employment premium is being built on to the crazy structure of the Selective Employment Tax, with all the bias against the tourist and service industries, which are so vitally important to many parts of Scotland. I know that the reason for it is to try to give a backhanded stimulus to exports, but if we need to give artificial stimuli to exports we might be better advised to look at the rate of exchange.
In his previous incarnation, the Secretary of State talked a great deal about planning. Did he plan to have 90,000 unemployed in Scotland this spring? Does he plan to have 120,000, 130,000 or 140,000 unemployed by next spring? Did he plan to have a level of emigration of 50,000 from Scotland this year? Those are the only tangible results in Scotland which we can see of the right hon. Gentleman's attempts at planning.
In the past, my constituency has been fortunate to escape high levels of unemployment, though we have had a continuing problem of emigration. However, only last week we had one factory close down, resulting in 110 redundancies. Does the Secretary of State suggest that I should tell those people, "It is all right. You are out of work, but it is planned this time, so that there is nothing for you to worry about"? We cannot do that.
Once again, we are inflicting on the people of Scotland a loss through emigration of the best of our talents in doctors, technicians, scientists and others whom we can ill-afford to lose. We are inflicting a wastage of jobs and of capacity; and to what end?

Mr. William Hannan: Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that emigration and unemployment began only in October, 1964? Is he not aware that, during the period of office of the previous Conservative Administration, in 1963, there were 163,000 unemployed and that unemployment today is less than it was when the present Government came into office?

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: What the hon. Gentleman does not seem to be aware of is that his right hon. Friends said that they would cure these problems, yet we see them getting worse. The level of

emigration has never been anything like as high as it is today.
What I find unforgivable about this experience is that I cannot see that it will solve our problems at all. We shall not solve our balance of payments difficulties by deflating and creating additional unemployment in Scotland. All that we do is to hit investment and thereby ensure that we sow the seeds of the next balance of payments crisis with the one that we are trying to escape from now.
Sooner or later we have to be prepared to tackle the balance of payments restraint on our ability to expand. I believe that this must mean a willingness to look again at the whole question of the exchange rate. I do not accept that anybody in Scotland should be driven to emigrate or to lose his job so that the Prime Minister can go to his grave with the words 2 dollars 80 cents written on his heart.

Mr. Speaker: Many hon. Members from many regions wish to speak. I hope that hon. Members will be reasonably brief.

6.21 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Rhodes: I am sure that the hon. Member for South Angus (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne) will forgive me if I do not follow him too closely into the problem in Scotland, of which I would not claim any special knowledge.
The Motion calls on the Government
to take positive measures clearly designed to promote economic growth
in the less prosperous areas. The presumptions are that such measures have not been taken, that the less prosperous regions have been let down by the Government, and that if the Opposition were the Government they would have done better. It is this last presumption which I would like to consider.
The July, 1966, squeeze has had a bad effect on many of these regions, and I think that it would be foolish to deny this. It was similar in many respects to the kind of squeeze that we had in July 1961 when the party opposite was in power. During that squeeze—and I remember it very well, because I was nursing my constituency at the time—unemployment in the Northern Region jumped to 5·5 per cent. over twice the national average. The industries in the North took a terrible beating.
The region suffered particularly severely, because before the previous Conservative Government imposed the squeeze they had not created the shock absorbers which would have enabled the North to withstand it. Between March, 1960, and March, 1963, that is, immediately before the squeeze was imposed, and running through the early part of it, additional employment for the Northern Region arising from the granting of I.D.C.s amounted to only 28,870 jobs. I say "only" because in the following three years, during the major part of the lifetime of the present Government, I.D.C. approvals for this region brought in an estimated additional 62,020 jobs, and I understand that the latest figures, which will be issued shortly, will show that this excellent progress in the provision of new jobs has been more than maintained.
It is interesting to note that in 1966 no less than 41·4 per cent. of the total floor space allocated to new factories in development areas came to the North. This compares rather favourably with the 24 per cent. which was granted in 1962 when the Conservatives were in power.

Mr. R. W. Elliott: This point is interesting enough, but does not the hon. Gentleman appreciate that it takes a good deal of time to bring a new industry into an area? I call in aid in reply to what the hon. Gentleman is saying an Answer given to me by the President of the Board of Trade in December last, when he said that, of the 578 I.D.C.s issued in the years 1960 to 1965, only 29 had been issued since the Labour Government took office. In other words, it was the work of Conservative Governments which brought these jobs to the Northern Region.

Mr. Rhodes: I agree that it takes a long time to plan the installation of new factories in these regions. My complaint about the Conservative Government's squeeze is that the counter measures came too late, and were too meagre in their application when the squeeze was in force.
Let us consider the development areas, and look in particular, at the floor space allocated to the Northern Region. The region's percentage in 1961 was 26·5; in 1962, it was 24·4; in 1963, it was 31·3;

in 1964, it was 34·3; in 1965, it was 39·7; and, last year, it was 41·4. I suggest that the latest figures will show a further increase. The hon. Gentleman is capable of doing an arithematical calculation to discover that the persistent increase year after year, which was beginning shortly before his party went out of power, has been continued during the lifetime of the present Government.
Since the Labour Government came to power, the lion's share of new factory space has been coming to the Northern Region. I understand that it has received a bigger proportion than any other region. The last time this happened was when the Labour Government were in power, between 1945 and 1951. It is right and proper that this should be so, because the Northern Region had the lion's share of the declining industries.
During the last four years of the previous Conservative Administration, employment in the declining basic industries of the Northern Region, especially in coal mining, fell by a total of 60,000 jobs. It was because the rate of decline was so steep, and because intervention by the Government came so late, that the ranks of the Tory Party in the North were completely decimated during the 1964 General Election. After the Labour Government came to power there was a considerable increase in the percentage allocation of floor space to this region.
If the present trend continues, the region will be in a far healthier state to withstand the effects of the squeeze than it was four years ago. Male unemployment is the most severe problem in this region and I suggest that the regional employment premium, to which reference has been made, could be a very effective weapon in dealing with it.

Mr. R. Carr: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not want to mislead the House on facts. When he talks about trends, is he aware that according to official records factory building completed in the first half of 1966 in the Northern Region amounted to 1·2 million sq. ft., compared with 1·9 million sq. ft. the year before? The trend is downwards, and not upwards.

Mr. Rhodes: I do not dispute that if one were to check the regional allocation of I.D.C.s over the years one would find that there was a dip in some earlier


years, but the point is that the allocation of floor space has been increasing rather than decreasing under this Government. These are the figures which were supplied in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Alan Williams) on 10th April. The right hon. Gentleman can check them in HANSARD.
During the weekend the North had a fleeting visit from the Chairman of the Conservative Party, the right hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann). I have given the right hon. Gentleman notice of what I am going to say. Speaking in Gateshead, he said that it was
a 'damned disgrace' that 50,000 people in the North are unemployed",
and he went on to ask whether the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer knew that the North-East existed, or cared whether it did. The right hon. Gentleman shows his ignorance of Tynesiders if he thinks that they will fall for a load of petty political cant of that type.
The right hon. Gentleman's memory is rather selective, and not quite so long as that of many of the Tynesiders. They can remember when 50,000 people were unemployed, not just for one month, but right through the latter months of 1962 to the early months of 1964, and that in the middle of that period it reached 92,360, nearly twice the number which the right hon. Gentleman said was a damned disgrace. The figure to which I have just referred was a double-damned disgrace, and it is fair to ask whether the right hon. Gentleman, who, I believe, was in the House at the time, told his Government that it was a damned disgrace that nearly 100,000 people were out of work in the Northern Region.
Nobody in this House or elsewhere, whatever his political persuasion, can afford to be complacent about the unemployment situation in the North of England. I willingly concede to my colleagues on these benches who are members of the Northern group, and, indeed, to the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North (Mr. R. W. Elliot), and the hon. Lady the Member for Tyne-mouth (Dame Irene Ward), that nobody in the North is happy about the employment situation there at the present time. But we shall not solve the problem by people buzzing off to the North at the weekend and saying that the situation is disgraceful, and leaving without putting

forward some constructive suggestion and explaining why this problem was allowed to develop in the region, in the first place, during the late 'fifties and early 'sixties.
Any reasonable person, and I quote as my authority for this spokesmen for the North-East Development Council and many other bodies, can see that the North has been withstanding the effects of the squeeze far better this time than it did when the Conservative Party had to impose a similar squeeze on the economy for rather similar reasons, and the region recognises this.
It may have escaped the notice of the master-mind who ran the Conservative county council election campaign that the two counties with the lowest swings in the United Kingdom—the ones least responsive to the pro-Conservative swing—happened to be Northumberland and Durham. I suggest that the Chairman of the Conservative Party came to Tyneside last weekend not to offer constructive suggestions to the people of the area as to the way in which the problem could be solved, but for the sole purpose of political scaremongering, and because of the miserable swing that he got in the area a week ago, in the county council elections. I suggest that his visit was in preparation for the borough council elections in Newcastle and elsewhere in May.
I suggest that the main purpose of the Motion is far less that of seeking to solve the problem of the area than to get over a bit of political propaganda for the election campaign that is about to take place. This is as clear as daylight to anybody who understands the timing of debates in the House of Commons and their subject matter. I can assure the House that Northerners are not so easily motivated by that kind of party political propaganda. They prefer common sense, and for the rest of my speech I propose to make some useful and constructive suggestions for a solution of our current problems.

Mr. R. W. Elliott: I listened to the Chairman of the Conservative Party make his speech, and I would point out that he was speaking of the fact that unemployment in the Northern Region has recently risen dramatically, due to the policies of the Government, by no less


than 1,749, as compared with the usual seasonal fall at this time, of 3,500.

Mr. Rhodes: I concede that an unemployment figure of 50,000 is much worse than it should be, and that it may be regarded as highly dramatic—but it is not half as dramatic as an unemployment figure of 92,000, which was the peak figure when the party opposite was in power—and I would point out that there was an unemployment figure of 50,000 not just for one month but continuously from 1962 to 1964. References to the dramatic rise in unemployment are nothing more than political humbug.
On the credit side, people in the North are satisfied that in a region with only 5·7 per cent. of the United Kingdom insured population in manufacturing industries we are getting over 20 per cent. of the new jobs that are being created for the whole country. We are getting four times our share, in purely percentage terms, and that is right and proper. There is some confidence in the region, as is shown by the fact, which may not seem immediately relevant, that in 1966 house-building starts, in both the public and the private sectors, were well up on the previous year. This shows the degree of confidence of the people of the area. Nevertheless, serious underlying weaknesses in the Northern economy remain.
First, and most obviously, it still depends heavily on the two basic industries of mining and shipbuilding. In this region, the mining industry is still contracting at the rate of 6,000 jobs a year, and in shipbuilding a very difficult position exists in respect of order books, aggravated by the present disgraceful lock-out of draughtsmen by the Shipbuilding Employers' Federation. If this lock-out continues much longer it will have disastrous consequences for the industry.
Because of the situation that I have described there is a need further to diversify industry and to bring in far more factories which can utilise the male labour that is coming on to the market. We already have three new industrial retraining centres but I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North-West (Mr. Armstrong) will agree that if any region needs an extra industrial retraining centre his constituency

does. I say that on his behalf because I believe that there is a convention which does not enable him to intervene in this debate.

Dame Irene Ward: rose—

Mr. Rhodes: I am sorry; I have already given way two or three times.

Dame Irene Ward: Not to me.

Mr. Rhodes: I am conscious of what Mr. Speaker said a moment ago, and, also, that some of my colleagues wish to speak.

Dame Irene Ward: I have risen twice—

Mr. Rhodes: Very well.

Dame Irene Ward: I am grateful to the hon. Member. He has referred to the lock-out of draughtsmen. Will he go further and tell us what his views are on the situation that exists in the shipbuilding industry on Tyneside, namely, that no orders whatsoever are coming forward? It has nothing to do with the draughtsmen's lock-out. Under the Conservative Government—[Interruption.]—for a period—[Interruption.]—we had a good number of orders for the shipyards on the Tyne. Will the hon. Member deal with the problem of Vickers, in his constituency—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Hon. Members are disguising speeches as interventions.

Mr. Rhodes: I am sorry that I gave way. I could answer the hon. Lady's point if I chose to go into details about the shipbuilding industry. I will merely say that the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East has done more to try to solve Vickers' problems than his predecessor did during the previous five years. The lock-out is relevant to this problem. It is disgraceful that in this day employers should use tactics appropriate to the 1920s and the 1930s to try to settle a dispute.
The main question is whether deflation has gone too far, and whether this is the time to give a further boost to investment in the regions. The North-East of England has never been a contributory cause to inflation. That is why it has always asked for differential treatment, to spare it from the consequences of the overheating of the economy in other areas. The


measures put forward in the past have met with a degree of success. During the recent squeeze there have been no serious capital investment cuts of the kind that we had a few years ago. The time has now come, however, for us to ask for something more. No one can be complacent about this situation. We should ask the Government to use the Selective Employment Tax for regional stabilisation. The Chancellor should vary the premium return to industry geographically, so that firms in development areas will get more.
The proposal in the Green Paper, whereby employers in development areas will get an extra premium in the range of £1 to £2 per man per week, would make a serious contribution to attracting male employment to the development areas. I know that this will create problems of competition for labour between service and manufacturing industry, but male employment is so critical in the North that any measures of special relevancy to these industries which are likely to draw in male labour on this basis, and especially if the differential for male labour was markedly higher than for female, would be justifiable.
The £100 million or so a year which it would cost would be possibly the biggest contribution to solving the problem of regional unemployment which has come from either party during the last 10 years. I hope that the Government will not bow to the pressure groups which will oppose this proposal and that they will be persuaded least of all by the Opposition.
Although the people in the North do not begrudge the gains of other parts of the country, they are disturbed that the Post Office Savings Bank was redirected from its first destination, the North of England, to Scotland, that the Motor Vehicle Registration Office has recently been directed to Swansea—I do not object to that—and that there has been a deferment of the decision on Inland Revenue offices. We feel that the time has come to reach a decision that the Mint at least should be located in the North, where we have the necessary facilities to meet its challenge for the region.
Finally—and I believe that this is crucial—we need more technological and

research establishments geared to local industry. Unless the manufacturing concerns in the area can be persuaded to undertake a substantial proportion of the basic development work which underpins their manufacturing processes, there is a danger that the region will be condemned to merely productive activity which is in many cases becoming obsolete anyway. The creation of a climate favourable to technological innovation is scarcely helped when there are no Government civil research stations and only one research association in the region.
The Government's heavy investment in industries based on the physical sciences, such as electronics, has been confined to other regions. Therefore, we have a technological imbalance in the region, which inhibits contact between industry and the universities and discourages graduates from settling down to a career in the North—even those from our own universities—and which seriously reduces the choice of employment available to school-leavers with scientific leanings.
We welcome the setting up of, for instance, the new polytechnics in the North, but I greatly regret that the decision has been deferred to establish a new technological university in the North. It was a tragedy that, during the university development under the party opposite, so many were established in regions without the technological imbalance of the North.
My last few suggestions were by way of constructive criticism, as I and my colleagues are not complacent about the problem. We believe that the North, in terms of new industry and factory space, has been doing reasonably well, and far better than it did four years ago—but it is not well enough. It needs to move far more quckly forward. However, as for the Opposition and the speeches of the Chairman of the Conservative Party at the weekend—they are a political irrelevance. They have no relevance to the kind of problems which we are tackling. For this reason, I will willingly support the Government in the Lobby and vote against the Opposition's Motion.

6.45 p.m.

Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: I should like to lower the temperature a little and to quote not partisan material or any party chief, but that of an


eminently non-partisan body, the Lancashire and Merseyside Industrial Development Association, which was referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr). This distinguished body, comprising all that is best in Lancashire and Merseyside, of all parties and no party, yesterday and today has come out with a savage condemnation of the way things are going in the region for which it is responsible.
The House should know that, of that region, only a small proportion, the northern part of Merseyside, is a development area. Therefore, I am the first back bencher, I think, to speak on behalf of those without these privileges. Yet those of us who represent this area, which is greatly in need of a reform of its infrastructure, where the communications are so bad and which is in many ways still suffering from the legacy of the past, where industries are old, know from recent experience that the habit of attaching magnetic influence to certain areas which the Government have chosen to create in a certain way is reducing even such industry as we have.
I therefore add my voice to that of the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Dr. Gray), who appealed earlier for the creation of a middle band or grey area, to use the Parliamentary Secretary's terms, in a demand for efforts to see that these magnetic areas—it is now suggested by the Green Paper that they should be made even more magnetic—shall not operate so as to draw all the cream away from areas like the North-East of Lancashire.
I made very much this same speech about 15 years ago, when the North-East Development area of Lancashire was imposed. The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Sydney Silverman) will remember that happening. It was on the doorstep of my constituency and I feared that it might become a magnet for my constituency, for Blackburn and for other areas which, for some reason were excluded from it. My own Government did it, and, fortunately for the people of Blackburn and Darwen and Bolton and the other areas excluded, it was not very effective and the magnetic effect was not too great—

Mr. Sydney Silverman: I am not interested in whether

Codlin is the friend or Short. That is not the important part. What the hon. and learned Gentleman said about the creation of a development area in North-East Lancashire ought to be completed by remembering that, although the Tory Administration, for the only time in their history, allowed North-East Lancashire to be a development area, just before the 1959 General Election, as soon as they had won that election, they withdrew the Act upon which development areas depended and North-East Lancashire has not been a development area ever since.

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: Well, it is time that it was so again and it is time, if the Lancashire and Merseyside Industrial Development Association has its way, that the whole of Lancashire should be given these benefits, because it needs them. This Association feels very keenly the "all or nothing" nature of the development area policy as it is developing. It is clear from recent events that it is having a deleterious effect, at least on the weaving belt of Lancashire. Mills—weaving sheds —have been going out rapidly recently. One went out in my constituency the week before last. It is weaving out and it will never reopen. That we must face.
A larger and stronger firm than the very good but small firm which ran the millCourtaulds—has announced, and I am glad that it has, its intention to build four large modern weaving sheds. Considering the resources of labour and expertise that exists in the weaving belt of Lancashire, one would have thought that the four large modern weaving sheds should be placed there, but it looks as if they will not.
We know that one is to go to a development area 70 miles north of Lancashire and there is serious doubt about the other three. I am convinced that if it had been decided that they would come to Lancashire, as they should, the fact would already have been announced, but there is a rather suspicious hush over their location.
I am also convinced that if the proposals in the Green Paper for a premium of £1 or £2 for each worker off the Selective Employment Tax are put into effect, those new weaving sheds will go to a development area and not to Lancashire, which, under the present rule, is not to have the benefit of the premium.


Is that the way that the Government think that regionalism should operate? It seems to me incredible that it should be "all or nothing".
I suggest that the Government will be making the whole thing far too artificial and too much of a straitjacket unless they adopt some sort of marginal provisions at least. If the new and, I am glad to say, successful group of the Conservative Party on the Lancashire County Council, run by Mr. Lumby, is not to have its way —it has already called for the scheduling of Lancashire within the development area—let the Government tonight at least say that they are considering sympathetically some sort of semi-status at the very least, so that if there is to be a refund of premium, for example, of Selective Employment Tax in the development areas, we sha:1 get at least 50 per cent. refund. At least, let us get somewhat more than the rate of investment grant that goes to Birmingham and London under the existing scheme. Let us get something between that and the full 45 per cent. for the development areas.
If we have that extreme contrast in a place such as Lancashire, which is flanked on the north by one development area and on the west by another in Merseyside and Wales, all our desires to see the quality of life in Lancashire improve and to find growth appearing there to take the place of the weaving sheds that we see all around us during these months, will fail; and it will be a dreadful danger, because it will be not only a failure of the general squeeze, but it will be an induced failure by the Government by putting these two magnetic points so near Lancashire and yet excluding her from their benefits.

6.54 p.m.

Mr. Denis Coe: I am delighted that the House has been given this opportunity to discuss the Government's policy towards the regions. It seems clear that the Conservative Motion is an attack of bad conscience in blaming my right hon. Friends for not achieving all the things that they themselves had hardly begun in 13 years.
The reason why these problems are being discussed today is not, I suggest, as in the case of the poverty debate last week, an indictment of the Government, but an indication of the long period of Conservative inaction. Not only have we

in the regions to face that long 13 years of inaction. We must also face the fact that for a much longer period we have had so-called private, free enterprise, which has left in its wake in many of the regions the squalor of bad housing, ugly environments and declining industries.
I now represent a constituency as does the hon. and learned Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke), in the Lancashire and Cheshire area, but I was born and bred in the Northern area, on Tyneside, and I know something of the problems of that area. I am glad to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Rhodes) of the progress which is being made there. But I know the problems and the squalor which existed there in the 1930s. During the period of Conservative rule from 1951 to 1964, I saw little difference in their attitude towards those areas. Therefore, while I thank hon. Members opposite for giving us the opportunity of discussing the regions, I believe their arguments to be totally hypocritical.
The problems which we are discussing are long term. By their very nature, they could not possibly have been solved in two and a half years. I therefore congratulate my right hon. Friends on the initiatives which they have taken already in regional policy. There can be little doubt that the establishment of regional planning councils and boards is focusing attention on the needs of each region. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary said earlier this afternoon, we are also getting knowledge about the regions which we have never had before and on which we have been able to base solid regional policies. This is now coming through the existence of those two types of body. They, in turn, are working in close liaison with Government Departments.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: Does not my hon. Friend think it quite fantastic in a planning sense that in the present circumstances of the textile industry in Lancashire the Government should spend millions of pounds to encourage a wealthy weaving firm to establish new weaving sheds, with 1,000 new looms, in an area which has nothing to do with the textile industry and never has had, while 1,000 looms are idle and hundreds and thousands of skilled textile workers are


unemployed in the Lancashire area? Is it not absolutely fantastic?

Mr. Coe: I have no doubt that if my hon. Friend is able to speak in the debate, he will make the point fully. If he will be patient, I will deal with some of the problems which face him and me as fellow Members in the area which we represent.
To go back to the positive features of Government policy towards the regions, the designation of development areas and the investment grants which we have had and the recent increases suggested for the development areas are steps in the right direction. I welcome the increase in the provision of advance factories and the liberal granting of industrial development certificates. I hope also that we will be able to evolve a scheme using the employment premium which will help to reduce labour costs and improve prospects in the development areas. All this I put on the credit side.
After making rather important strictures against the Opposition, it would be churlish for me not to thank them for giving the Government, myself and my hon. Friends an opportunity of reminding the electorate that these are positive measures which the Government have already carried out.
I should like to comment on three aspects of regional policy which seem to me to be important. The first is the economic position of non-development areas, such as the area to which I belong —the North-West—which are experiencing extremely difficult employment and other problems. Secondly, I would like to look quickly at the wider implications of environmental and cultural opportunnities in the regions, and, thirdly, at the administrative structure within the regions as an aid to their economic and cultural development.
The Industrial Development Act, 1966, laid down a much wider definition of development areas than we have ever had before. It defined them as places where
… special measures are necessary to encourage the growth and proper distribution of industry …
Again, it says that in exercising those powers
… the Board"—
that is, the Board of Trade—

shall have regard to all the circumstances actual and expected, including the stage of employment and unemployment, population changes, migration and the objectives of regional policies.
Those of us in the North-West, and, in particular, in North-East Lancashire, South Lancashire and parts of the coastal area—and my hon. Friend the Member for Yarmouth (Dr. Gray) mentioned East Anglia—feel that this wide definition in the Act does not appear to be as yet observed, and that the level of unemployment appears to be the main and, perhaps, the only criterion on which the development areas are being designated.
The result is that areas such as my own area where there is still a large predominance of the two major industries of coal and textiles are in very serious difficulties, and we know from what has been said recently in the House that quite apart from the unemployment problem we have to face major problems of urban renewal. We have to face the fact that the latest estimates for the North-West made by the North-West Planning Council talks in terms of an increase of 1 million people in the area, and of investment allowances which, at the moment, will be in the 20 to 25 per cent. range because we are not in the development area.
While the granting of industrial development certificates has improved in the North-West and is better in our area, from the evidence given by the First Secretary, than in areas such as London, we are still greatly concerned about how much more could be done in the granting of industrial development certificates. Therefore, as the hon. and learned Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) pointed out, we are in some ways referred to as grey areas; we are an area which is not booming nor have we sufficient unemployment to qualify as a development area.
Obviously, the ideal solution to our problems in the North-West will be for the Government to designate us as a development area. I am sure that all would be very delighted if that were to happen. However, I recognise the difficulty that this might cause. If we were to go on arguing in this way, one difficulty might be that the whole country would be defined as a development area, or there would be a very much larger development area in


total than there is now, and this would make matters difficult.
The second possibility is the use of much more flexibility in the size of investment allowances and the granting of industrial development certificates. The Government can do a great deal here by sophisticating its machinery of government more than has been done up to now. I suggest that if this sort of action were taken we would need some changes in the structure of government, a point to which I shall refer in a moment or two.
My second point relates to the wider implications of environment and the cultural opportunities in the regions. Again, it is right that we should pay tribute to my right hon. Friends in the Government who have recognised that we should look at such problems as the development of the arts in the regions, the development of sport in the regions, and the development of polytechnics and other educational establishments. These are all to the credit of the Government.
But I also argue that this type of development of the regions is to a large extent dependent on the emphasis which local authorities and other regional bodies place on raising the quality of life in the regions. I therefore welcome the fact that, for example, the North-West Planning Council has carried out quite extensive studies into a number of important aspects such as atmospheric pollution, litter, industrial waste and bad architecture. How important is that item of architecture? How long must we continue to be faced with the sort of architecture that passes as something beautiful, but which will be an eyesore for the next 50 to 100 years or more? That is something on which I hope we shall get a considerable lead in the regions.
The Council is also looking at such matters as parks, and the whole question of the arts. In areas such as the North-West, which is despoiled in so many ways by old squalid buildings, the need for much greater beauty to be created is especially important. I suggest that in some ways it is literally a matter of education; of introducing both children and their parents to a love of beauty, a knowledge of cultural activities, and the like. There is pressure within the areas not to be satisfied with the sort of conditions and environment that have been allowed to

develop, but the Government must be even more active in giving a lead here.
Thirdly, I want to look at the administrative structure within the regions as an aid to their economic and cultural development. Here, we must look at two main strands. The first is the local and regional structure, and the second is the ministerial and governmental structure. I welcome the setting up of economic planning councils, but we must ask what, in the long run, is to be the future of these councils and how, in the long run, will they be fitted into the whole structure of local and regional government. We need to know about this now if we are to plan ahead effectively in terms of integrating regional activities. In other words, we want a great deal of guidance from the Royal Commission on Local Government.
I do not believe that we can any longer afford a galaxy of different types of local authority, variously elected, and above them have a non-elective regional government. A clear indication must be given as to where we are going. We have already got examples of large authorities which are virtually regions in themselves. The obvious example is London, but we also have it in Birmingham, which has a totally different local government structure from that in London. Again, what particular type of structure are we to have in the North-East?
In dealing with these problems we must have a definite pattern, so that we may look forward 100 years, because it must be remembered that once we decide on our future pattern of local and regional government that pattern will have to last for at least 100 years. We must, therefore, be certain that in getting the right type of local government regionally it fits in to the pattern, and co-ordinates affairs within the region. Unless we get authorities which are physically, financially and temperamentally capable of tackling major problems of transport, urban renewal, and so forth, and do it in the right degree, we are in for another period of difficulty over the variations in structure that exist now.
Turning to ministerial and governmental structure, I welcome the planning boards being set up locally which are proving to be an example of intergovernmental co-operation which can


grow quite considerably. They are being useful in co-ordinating regional policy. Again, however, I have to ask whether we are satisfied that the existing ministerial structure is the most effective that is possible. Perhaps the day is coming when, for example, the Board of Trade ought not to be considered so much an autonomous governmental Department, but should be incorporated in the Ministry of Economic Affairs. That would make a good deal of sense and I hope that it will at least be discussed. So many of the activities of the Board of Trade —the granting of industrial development certificates and so on—are part and parcel of that economic growth which is the concern of the Treasury bench, through the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
I am not sure that we should not be moving towards something which embraces all these rather than having this fragmentation which exists at the moment. I hope that in this context we may have much stronger links at Government level and much greater co-operation particularly in the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, the Department of Economic Affairs, the Ministry of Technology, the Ministry of Transport and the Board of Trade.
At present, there is need for more flexibility in the Government administration of the regions. This is possible within the structure we have, but it can be improved in the way I have suggested. The fact that the party opposite has failed in its policies towards the regions stems to a large extent from the fact that hon. Members opposite are temperamentally and psychologically opposed to Government intervention in any great degree. They are never quite sure at what level they should allow that to happen. Because we on this side of the House believe that it is the place of the Government to encourage the regions so that we have good development of life for all our people, I believe that the Government are on the right lines; but I hope that they will take some account of the ways in which I think these matters can be improved.

7.11 p.m.

Mr. David Steel: I very much agree with the hon. Member for Middleton and Prestwich (Mr. Coe) about the need for

reform of regional government and I shall return to this later.
It is interesting that the Motion put forward by the Opposition is almost self-condemnatory. By including the phrase "less prosperous regions" hon. Members opposite recognise that after their long period in office such places exist. That in itself condemns them out of their own mouths. I was very disappointed by the speech from the Opposition Front Bench because it seemed that we were being advised by their policies to go back to the sort of thing we had when they were in office.
I remember the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) bringing great joy to the people of Scotland when he said in Glasgow:
Let economic forces work unhindered and the workers will be obliged to migrate where there are jobs.
The Government acted on that, and so did the people. I remember also that in the debate on the Local Employment Bill on 2nd December, 1959, the right hon. Member for Barnet (Mr. Maudling)— who might be regarded as a more orthodox member of the Opposition—when resisting a Liberal Amendment to take account of unemployment and depopulation, said:
I do not want to enter deeply into the merits of the argument on depopulation—many arguments could be adduced on both sides. We in this country cannot set ourselves like Canute against a tide which is flowing quite hard in many parts of the world." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd December. 1959; Vol. 614, c. 1300.]
Again it was a refusal to tackle a problem when it was recognised. The then President of the Board of Trade, now leader of the Opposition, in Berwick also resisted demands that depopulation should be tackled as part of Government policy.
It is a little late in the day now for a Motion such as this regretting the fact that areas of the country are less prosperous than others. The right hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) said that the creation of new development areas would dilute the assistance given. That is exactly what I heard in speeches at the General Election when I was defending the Government in their extension of development areas. Conservative policy seemed to be to criticise the spreading of the jam too far and yet asking for


it to be spread further to areas such as Edinburgh. There is no concrete policy to compare with what has been put forward by the Government. I certainly support such steps as have been taken. The Opposition last week discovered child poverty. This week they have discovered less prosperous regions. We wait excitedly to see what they will discover next week.
In their Amendment the Government ask us to applaud their energy. I have no objection to applauding their energy; but what people in the less prosperous regions want to applaud are results. To give the Secretary of State for Scotland one example, there is no question that the present Minister of State for Scotland, when he was Under-Secretary of State in charge of housing, was most energetic. He tried to get the programme moving, but it did not come off. That was not his fault. It was largely because of the economic circumstances of the country and the damper which the Chancellor of the Exchequer put on growth and development of the economy, which applied just as much in Scotland as elsewhere. So, although we can applaud his energy, there were no results to applaud.
Credit restrictions, for example, applied by the Chancellor were just as severe in Scotland as elsewhere. Yet if regional economic policies are to be successful some attempt must be made to make sure that the damping down of the economy when required does not hit the so-called less prosperous parts. The Chancellor visited the S.T.U.C. conference in Scotland at the week-end. He was photographed sailing on a steamer down the Clyde. Significantly, his hand was on the control of the steamer and, clearly in the photograph, the control was at "Stop".

Mr. Ross: My right hon. Friend brought the ship into harbour.

Mr. Steel: The Chancellor's policies have affected the policies of the right hon. Gentleman who is attempting to interrupt me. I ask him, when winding up the debate, to answer a question which was almost put by the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Mr. Henry Clark) whether it is the intention of the Government to vary investment grants or the new

regional employment premium within development areas? The hon. Member gave the example of Belfast and the region around Belfast. In Scotland we have the problem of trying to stop the mini-drift to the central belt. So far nothing outlined by the Government leads to the suggestion that this will be stopped. If equal incentives are given elsewhere, the natural pull will be from places such as the Highlands, the Borders and the North-East towards the centre. I know that it is not easy, but I hope that some way will be found by the Government to introduce varied investment grants or use industrial development certificates so that while large industries may go to the central belt smaller industries may go to the other regions.
It is a pity that the Green Paper on the regional employment premium has been attached to the Selective Employment Tax because in parts of Scotland, notably the Highlands, and also in places such as Cornwall, the economy depends very heavily on service industries. This Paper brings no hope to them. It is important to develop tourist industries in the same way as the Government of Eire pump in money for their tourist industry and even the Stormont Parliament does in Northern Ireland. We do not get promotion of tourism as a foreign exchange earner and the encouragement of people to spend their holidays at home instead of going abroad. We do not get the encouragement which should be given.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: Would not the hon. Member accept that it is terribly important for those of us who have been dependent on tourism for so long to have investment of a completely different industrial kind and that in those regions this is most desirable?

Mr. Steel: I agree. I am not one of those who believe that tourism is the cure-all for the remoter areas. But my constituency, which has very healthy manufacturing industries, could develop the potential of tourism much more than it is at the moment. This is true of other places.
I want to see some development in the less prosperous regions which would not be covered by the Green Paper—things like consultative and advisory offices; in my part of the country, training colleges; new technical colleges; and, if we are to


revive the proposal of a further university in Scotland, what about one at Inverness? None of these things will be directly encouraged as a result of the Green Paper.
Therefore, although the Green Paper is to be welcomed as a means of attracting new industry and filling advance factories, for instance, it is a pity that it is tied to the Selective Employment Tax. It would have been much better if the Government had adopted the proposal put forward by the Liberal Party on the 1966 Finance Bill that, instead of the Selective Employment Tax differentiating between manufacturing and service industries, there should be a payroll tax levied regionally, which could bring into account the point made by the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Dr. Gray) about East Anglia. Such a tax could be varied regionally. There could be different levels and different categories for different areas. There would be not merely development areas and other areas but a sliding scale variable from year to year, which could become part of our permanent tax system.
Will the benefit of the regional employment premium be passed on in some measure to the employees in areas where the standard of living is lower than the national average? This is why the Liberal Party's Amendment refers to the standard of living of the people in the less prosperous regions. This is something we shall have to cure. I am appalled when at my clinics from week to week people show me their pay slips. A working man earning £9 a week and with a fairly large family to support is well below what we glibly talk of as the national average of wages of about £20 a week. The national average is meaningless in some parts of the country. I hope that as part of an attempt to bring industry into the development areas the wage levels will rise.
Is it the Government's intention that some of the £2 premium which is to be given to manufacturers should be passed on to employees? I suspect that this is not intended. The Green Paper talks of this premium not causing inflation. There is a need to increase demand in the development areas. If we are to cease to have less prosperous regions, it follows that they must become more prosperous, that demand must rise, and that there must be more money in people's pockets. I am not

sure that the Green Paper will achieve this.
What is the future of the various bodies which the Government have set up? I am very concerned about some of the public criticism of the bodies which have been set up over the past two or three years. The Secretary of State for Scotland must be concerned about the criticism voiced at the S.T.U.C. of the Scottish Planning Council. We are all concerned about the criticism that has been made of the Highland Development Board. I am concerned that in my constituency the consultative group, which I have encouraged and supported all along, is also coming under criticism.
Part of the explanation for the criticism in each case is that these bodies are not reflecting the views of, and not working closely with, those whose interests they are supposed to be protecting. They are far more identified with the Government and with the administration of government—with the Scottish Office—than they are with the people whom they are supposed to represent.
The Government must be careful about this, because it would be a tragedy if these bodies ceased to have public support because of a feeling that they were on the wrong side of the fence. Were the Government right in their decision that the secretariats of these bodies should be provided by the Civil Service and be part of the administrative machine? This mistake may partly explain the criticism. The public relations of the three bodies I have mentioned have left much to be desired. It is important that these bodies carry with them the people concerned in the areas.
The Government have invited us to give them a pat on the back for what they have done. They have certainly done a great deal for the less prosperous regions of Scotland. It is true that they have shown energy, but it is results that people want to see. The present mood of the people of Scotland is that the Government having faced the right direction, they want to give the Government not a pat on the back but a heftier blow lower down the anatomy.

7.25 p.m.

Mr. Roy Hughes: This debate on the problems of the regions


has been initiated by the Tory Party. I admire the audacity of hon. Members opposite. A few weeks ago there was a by-election in one of the most famous industrial valleys in Great Britain, the Rhondda Valley, the people of which have suffered much over many years as a result of industrial depression. In the by-election the people of Rhondda demonstrated that they were not satisfied with what the Labour Government were doing for them, but showed their contempt for the poor Tory candidate, who forfeited his deposit. How right the people of Rhondda were, for the record of the Tory Party in dealing with the problems of the regions is a disastrous one.
I am one of those who believe that the Labour Government have not done as much as they could have done for what are now so fashionably called the development areas. I should like to see the Government intervening in a physical sense with elements of Government-sponsored manufacturing industry being introduced into the areas. In our pre-1964 pamphlets, we on this side said that, where private enterprise failed the nation, the State would step in. I suggest that this is what has happened, because private enterprise has not introduced industry in sufficient quantities into these regions.
From the point of view of the Labour Government, there are signs of improvement. The recent decision to transfer the headquarters of the Motor Vehicle Registration Office to Swansea is a most praiseworthy decision. The recently issued Green Paper on the development areas contains some interesting proposals which, if implemented, could benefit regions like Wales, Scotland and the North of England.
Speaking generally, since the end of the war labour has been in short supply. In the development areas, however, there has been a surplus due to uneven distribution of demand. The demand for labour in the Midlands and the South of England builds up with inflationary effects and damage to our balance of payments position, but even in these times the level of unemployment in Wales, Scotland and the North of England represents a waste of human resources.
To follow the story through, I quote from paragraph 24 on page 11 of the Green Paper:
When action has become imperative to restrain the pressure of demand in the areas of high employment—and because this has involved measures affecting the whole economy —then unemployment in the Development Areas has been pushed up to an extent which has not proved acceptable for any length of time. This has led to a reaction against the measures of restraint and to pressure for relaxations.
In other words, areas like Wales, Scotland and the North of England are not the cause of the Government's having to introduce restrictionist measures, but once such measures are introduced, it is areas such as those which have to bear the brunt of the burden. The Chancellor admitted as much in his Budget speech this year. This is most unfair and emphasises the need for a more equitable distribution of industry throughout the country.
There is a tendency to regard the whole of South Wales as a development area; but this blanket judgment is not correct. It is not my purpose to make a constituency speech, but I have the honour and privilege to represent the County Borough of Newport, which is a thriving town. Its industry is prospering and its municipal achievements are second to none. My concern today is about Newport in relation to the region in which it is situated, for there is a close affinity between my constituency and the mining valleys of the hinterland.
Thousands of people in the valleys work in Newport. They shop there, too. In the light of this close affinity, it is necessary to consider carefully the Government's decision to study the physical and economic potential of Severnside. If the report is favourable and such a development takes place, it will have to be carefully planned. For example, would such a development mean that famous towns like Cardiff and Newport would be turned into a meaningless agglomeration? We have heard in the debate about market forces and the efficiency of industry. These terms are not necessarily complementary. Would the Severnside development mean that this area would be turned into another South-East of England, with all its attendant problems of housing and transport? This would not be economic efficiency.
Might we create something which future generations would for ever be trying to unravel? If such a development does take place, it will be necessary to ensure that there is a diversified location of industry serving a balanced population who would retain their local characteristics and way of life. For many people, this would be a more civilised approach.
For many years, we have suffered in our country from what has become known as rural depopulation, but this is now being followed by industrial depopulation due to the decline of some of the older industrial areas. I recommend hon. Members opposite to make a tour of some of the industrial valleys of South Wales and see there for themselves the real ravages of capitalism.
The pace of change in the second half of the 20th century is much more rapid than ever before. New techniques and new industries are quickly developing. Therefore, in contemplating development on such a scale as Severnside, we must ask ourselves whether we might again desecrate vast areas and build monuments which future generations will be only too ready to abandon.
What about the availability of capital? People in the present development areas may well ask why, if capital is available in such vast quantities, it is not available to rehabilitate some of the older industrial areas, in which—be it remembered—the capital was accumulated in the first place.
It may be said that Severnside is necessary for our possible participation in the Common Market. But that is another story, the end of which has not yet been decided. The gist of my message today is that South Wales badly needs industrial development, but let us make it in an orderly location of industry where labour is available and in areas where communities already exist.

7.35 p.m.

Mr. Paul Dean: The hon. Member for Newport (Mr. Roy Hughes) has referred to Severnside and possible developments there. I shall cross the Severn Bridge and look at it from the other side of the Bristol Channel.
The success of a regional development policy can be judged by the answers to two questions. First, does it help the region concerned to do what it can do best; does it help to bring out the natural advantages which the region has? Second, does it help the region to overcome the natural weaknesses inherent in its geographical and economic position? On both those counts, the South-West has come off extremely badly, and I do not believe that the Green Paper proposal for a regional employment premium will help very much in the problems which we have there.
One of our natural advantages is our good and mild climate, which makes farming and horticulture a natural basic industry in the South-West. Another is the beauty of our country and coastline, which makes the South-West the largest tourist region of the country, a region in which about one-third of the population derive their livelihood from the tourist trade. In the north, there is the industrial complex, with the great natural advantages on both sides of the Severn.
What about the disadvantages? The first, perhaps the most obvious, is that the South-West is remote from the main centres of population, the main conurbations, and the distances within the region itself are very great. This remoteness is a feature which must be considered more and more by the Government and everyone concerned, because the disadvantages of our remoteness are being accentuated as the magnet of Europe and the magnet of the discovery of gas under the North Sea tend to draw attention and development away from the western half of the country towards the eastern half. Another disadvantage is the lower level of earnings general in the South-West, which, of course, is partly dictated by the insufficiency of industrial employment there.
My principal complaint against the Government's policy is that it has hit the things which we can do best, and this has outweighed the help which is available to new industries to move into the development areas. There are many examples of this, and I shall deal with them briefly.
The first is the S.E.T., the net cost of which to the South-West Region is £16 million. In relation to our wages and


salary bill that is a bigger burden than any other region must bear. There is also the effect on the tourist industry of the withdrawal of the investment allowances. Here we have an industry of increasing significance both for people holidaying at home and its foreign earnings, which grow year by year. Yet it has lost the incentive to modernise its equipment and other provisions which must be improved if we are to continue to attract tourists to this part of the country.
It is no good the Government saying, as they so often do, that the tourist industry in the development areas is all right because of the various forms of assistance which are available, for only one of the main tourist centres in the West Country is in a development area. The other three are outside and, therefore, do not get the benefit provided by development area policy.
Then there is the question of communications, which I believe to be more important to us than anything else. Our road programme has been cut and there are no definite plans for the extension of the motorway network into the peninsula. The nearer it gets to the north, to Bristol and the surrounding area, the more important it becomes that we should have firm plans to extend it further down the peninsula, for otherwise whatever plans are made to bring in new industries are likely to be unsuccessful.
In the north we have had in my constituency the rejection by the Minister of Transport of the Portbury dock development plan. She is saying "Yes" to port development in many parts of the country but continues to say "No" to the development of the Bristol dock. That is bound to have a bad effect on the northern part of the region, which will sooner or later be reflected further south.
Does the Green Paper help? In my opinion it does not, for four reasons. First, it still maintains the main features of what I regard as a fundamentally bad tax—the Selective Employment Tax. Second, it fails to recognise that the service industries and agriculture are primary industries in the south-west. They are as important and will remain as important to us as, say, manufacturing industry is to the Midlands. Third, I believe that the Green Paper makes too big a differentiation between the develop-

ment areas and the comparatively weak economic areas just outside, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) said. Fourth, it will increase the existing anomalies in the premiums available for manufacturing industries.
I agree that to some extent the weight of those arguments is acknowledged in the Green Paper. For example, dealing with the yield of the tax in relation to wages and earnings, it states in paragraph 49:
… it is clear that the net yield of the tax as a percentage of the wage and salary bill must be rather higher in these subregions"—
here it is referring largely to Devon and Cornwall so far as the South-West is concerned—
than it is either in Britain as a whole or in the Development Areas as a whole.
That is one of the arguments which we have used against the Selective Employment Tax ever since it was first produced. I am glad to see that it is recognised, at any rate in the Green Paper.
The Green Paper goes on to acknowledge that the regional employment premiums will not solve the problems in the South-West, Mid-Wales and the Highlands of Scotland, which are very largely dependent upon the service industries. It states in paragraph 50:
But it would not be a reasonable criticism of either the existing arrangements or the proposed new premium, both designed to help growth in manufacturing industry, that they do not do the job which they are not meant to do of promoting development in parts of the country where the proportion of manufacturing industry is low and cannot be rapidly increased.
Paragraph 51 begins:
It is more constructive to look at the problems of these areas with a view to making the most of the kind of resources and potentialities which they do possess.
That would be fair enough if the Government had suggested something concrete to deal with the situation. But they have not. They acknowledge that the problem exists, and that this solution will not suit those rural parts of the country very largely dependent upon service industries. No solution is offered, and if there were one to develop the potentialities I should have no complaint about that paragraph. The heart of my criticism is, as it has been time and time


again, that the Government will persist in introducing economic policies which hit the West Country. They say that they will do something to undo the damage, but further action never follows. Why do the damage in the first place? Why not get the policy right to begin with?
There are also the obvious disadvantages in the delay between the introduction of a tax and then deciding how one will minimise its bad effects on the West Country. The tourist industry was a classic example. It lost its investment allowances; months went by before anything was put in their place; and when an alternative was offered it was totally unsatisfactory and insufficient to get the increased investment that we require in the tourist industry. The same is true of the S.E.T. We have been assured by the Government that they recognise its anti-regional bias, and yet none of that basic problem is recognised in the Green Paper.
There are, finally, the anomalies which the new premium will introduce to manufacturing industry. I am thinking of areas in the West Country which are just outside the development areas. There are many such places which are economically relatively weak and which need to have their industrial base strengthened. I fear that some of those industries may well move over the border into the development areas now. If that happens, one merely transfers the problem from one place to another. I hope that the Government will consider that point very seriously, because there is a real danger of that happening.
Another anomaly—I shall give only one example—which will certainly arise concerns the china clay industry, which, by its very nature, cannot move. I understand that under the Green Paper the china clay industry in Cornwall will have a higher investment grant and S.E.T. premium than the china clay industry in Devon. In other words, there will be totally unfair conditions of competition between parts of the same industry, depending on whether they happen to be in Cornwall or Devon.

Mr. Shore: The hon. Gentleman must be aware that any act of economic discrimination in favour of one area as opposed to another must create what he calls

conditions of unfair competition between them. If he stopped beefing, on the basis of no evidence, about the alleged ill effects of Government measures on the South-West and addressed himself constructively to the suggestion in paragraph 51 that if people have things to say which will help the areas in which they are interested we shall be prepared to listen, he would do himself and the South-West Region a service.

Mr. Dean: That is exactly what I am doing, and I hope that the Minister is listening to this. I can assure him that it is no good his thinking that he can laugh this one off and take no notice of what is being said. What I am saying now about the likely effect of the Green Paper is, I can assure him, shared by a very large number of people in the South-West, including members of his own Regional Economic Development Councils.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will get off his high horse and listen to these arguments. I know that he made the point earlier about the china clay industry. I accept that if one draws a line and sets up development areas this kind of problem is bound to arise. The point that I am putting is that the more we differentiate in a part of the country which is relatively economically weak, the more we differentiate between the help given to one area and that to another, the more we shall create anomalies when we are trying to spread industrial development evenly over a region. I hope that he will think about this point.
Whether this Paper is valuable for the older industries I do not know. It may be. But I beg the Government to realise that what may be suitable for the older industrial parts of the country is not necessarily suitable for areas like the South-West, and I do not believe that in this proposal the Government have either got rid of the fundamental disadvantages or put forward a suggestion which will be any more satisfactory.

7.52 p.m.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: I am delighted to be following the hon. Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean), partly because I do not think that I have ever found myself in greater disagreement with anyone. His attitude has given us a very clear demonstration of precisely


the difficulty in which the Opposition find themselves in relation to the Government's regional policy. On the one hand, he told us that more help should be given to areas outside of the development areas, a point with which I might have found myself in some sympathy. But, on the other, he seems to be objecting to the fact that the development areas are being spread a little wider than they were when his party was in power.
What the hon. Member has given us is a very clear indication of what the Conservative Party managed to achieve in the South-West in particular, during all the years that it represented the area in this House. I am not simply harking back to the last 13 years of Conservative administration, I am harking back to the many years previously, when the majority, the enormous majority of Members representing the South-West in this House was Conservative.
My hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary, in one of the last debates on the South-West, told us how many debates, we have had on this one region since the Government came to power. I am very grateful that he is our Government spokesman, because he knows the very real problems facing us and I hope that he will forgive me if, tonight, I address myself very much to some of the pressing things worrying me about the South-West.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for Somerset, North has demonstrated that we are still, in some quarters, not really looking at the economic problems of the South-West. He has referred to agriculture, which, on the evidence that we have had, is becoming increasingly mechanised. People are leaving the land and going into the towns and cities. Agriculture is dying from that point of view, but it is a developing industry which will not use many more people.
The hon. Member has mentioned tourism, but has not said what he envisages for those people who work in the cities of our regions, or those who are forced to leave the region to find higher paid employment in skilled trades. This particularly concerns me. I have a very real fear about what is happening in the South-West. The Government set up regional planning authorities and for the first time really considered the whole region. We would like not to have the

centre in Bristol. I am sufficiently parochial to wish that it were centred in Exeter.
But, more than that, I fear that we will see the drawing of an invisible line through the centre of our region. We will have the North, which will automatically have a certain amount of development, because of Severnside. Severn-side has been mentioned, quite rightly, as being a growth point, as being one of the future areas in which we shall see a great deal of investment. It will have a motorway passing through it and it will have a logical egress to the sea. It is a natural place for development, but what will this do to the rest of the region?
Will we have a situation, not in five years' time but in 15 or 20 years' time, when the south of the region will be relegated to being an emergency area? This is the last possible thing that we can afford to have happen. I would not in any way doubt the need, if one is to have differentiation between different parts of the region, to put our investment into Cornwall, as opposed to those parts of Devon like my own. This is not to say that I would not like an alteration in the policy of granting I.D.C.s to other areas. What concerns me is that our ancient cities are not getting the future investment, the future industrialisation. Although they have fairly low unemployment problems, these will not be improved unless we get new industries as opposed to the present service and tourist industries.
I ask the Government to consider this very seriously. We have all the advantages of an amenity area, but one cannot live on a view, even the most beautiful view. One cannot allow large parts of the National Park to be the only thing which attracts people to Devon and Cornwall. I am worried that there is such a complete misunderstanding in the regions about the role of the regional economic planning councils. We have had a little demonstration of that in the debate this evening.
It is not yet fully understood by people in the region who should be benefiting from the planning councils that the information gathered and the discussions taking place are for transmission to Whitehall in order to influence the forward planning of the Government. The regional councils have to bear a great deal of the blame on


this score. When one has a regional council dominated, as in some cases, by a very extrovert personality, one hears a great deal about what they are doing, while in other regions—it would be invidious to name economic planning council chairmen —one hears a great deal of what is going on. One hears about the sort of services being undertaken. We suffer a little in the South-West from the very poor public relations of some regional councils.
We have a large geographical area and it is not easy for our representatives to come to council meetings. It is important that the calibre of the people on these councils should be of the very highest. If I may ride one small hobby horse for a moment, why is it that in the four counties in the South-West one cannot find one woman who is coherent enough or strong enough to represent any part of the region? My hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary, who has my greatest respect and deepest affection, knows very well that the mass of females are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves. I hope that he will address his very sharp mind to this problem, because I am sure that there must be, somewhere, a woman who would satisfy even him.
There has been much discussion this evening about what are called the grey areas. That is a rather depressing title and they are more neighbourhood areas of the development areas. Can we have some indication of the Government's thinking on these lines? I accept that in parts of Cornwall and North Devon there are fantastically high rates of unemployment, so that I cannot demand preferential treatment for a cathedral city largely dependent on service industries, but I hope that the Government will consider some sort of associated status for such areas.
Will the Government ensure far more co-ordination among the very Government Departments which are making the decisions which will affect the future of the regions? I know that the Government intend to assist the regions, but there appears to be a fatal lack of co-ordination among some Departments, so that we get the Board of Trade, for instance, putting in new factories and the Ministry of Transport allowing railway lines to be closed, or railway services to be altered in such a way that the workers in a region can

no longer use that form of transport to get to work.
The way to win friends and influence people this evening is to stand up, speak up and shut up, and that is what I intend to do. My hon. Friend obviously has our support for all the Government have done up to now. We know that this problem is so deep-seated that it could not possibly be dealt with in two years, but I give my hon. Friend warning that we shall be fairly vocal for the next few years and that we are standing right behind him.

8.2 p.m.

Mr. R. W. Elliott: I am very pleased to follow the hon. Lady the Member for Exeter (Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody) who has made a pleasant and interesting speech. For most of us this is bound to be an area debate and most of us would agree with her assessment that no area can live on a view. I share her anxiety about the role of the economic planning councils—that anxiety spreads much further than the South-West—and with her I am sure that there must be a woman of sufficient calibre to serve on the hon. Lady's economic planning council. Certainly if she is an example of the womanhood of the South-West, there must be.
This is bound to be essentially a debate which brings out the problems of the areas represented by those called to speak. Although that is so, the problems of the development areas are such that they are very much a national problem and the problems of each area affect the country's economy as a whole.
The background and basis to the Motion is firmly based on something which the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson) said. With many other hon. Members, I was pleased to hear the hon. Gentleman speak. I, too, have been a Government Whip and I know what silence means. With the hon. Gentleman, I have been part of what are called the "usual channels". The hon. Gentleman was a very honourable and noble part of those channels, and it was very nice to hear him make his forthright speech.
When the hon. Gentleman said that the Labour Party when in opposition had been far too confident about the problems of the development areas, he hit the nail right on the head. This is something which might be said to the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East


(Mr. Rhodes), whose speech was very forthright. Certainly he speaks very forcefully. But I was in the House before he was and I used to sit exactly where he was when he made his speech tonight. I remember sitting on that side of the House behind the then Conservative Government and taking a great deal of stick from Labour Members about regional policy. We were told very forcefully by some very able orators that it was merely a question of planning, of broader thinking, of a Labour Government, and then the problems of the development areas would soon fade into the mists. This debate was bound to come, because, of course, the problems have not faded into the mists and the magnitude of some has increased. It is therefore right and proper that the Conservative Party, now in opposition, should point out that the Government's restrictive economic policies are harming the development areas.
The hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East rightly said that the Conservative Party had done very badly at the polls in the North-East, but there was great resentment when we were campaigning just over a year ago because of the suggestion from Labour platforms that in 17 months of Labour Government unemployment had been cured. Certainly there had been a dramatic improvement, at least in employment prospects, but, as I said when I ventured to intervene in the hon. Gentleman's speech, new jobs take quite a time to attract and new industries take a time to become established. We in the Conservative Party in the North-East felt a certain sense of righteousness, because the improvement, at least in the first three-quarters of the period of Labour Government, had been largely due to the efforts of Conservative Administrations. I told the House and the hon. Gentleman the number of industrial development certificates which we had effected during our period in office.
It is much more important to get right the fact that basically both parties desire to see developing areas. In that we are at one and basically sincere. It is a matter of the method. We wished to see new industry brought to the area and we therefore tried, reasonably effectively, to get together about what should be done in the areas.
I am sorry to dwell so long on the speech of the hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East for more than one reason but he forcefully criticised the weekend speech of my right hon. Friend the Chairman of the Conservative Party and was less than fair in doing so, because after this period of Labour Government there is an unemployment crisis in the North-East.
In the past few days two shipbuilding firms have announced that they will be closing, which means unemployment for 700 men, while 400 men at George Clark Limited, Sunderland, are to become redundant at the end of July. The rise in unemployment in the Northern Region announced last week was 1,749, compared with the normal seasonal fall in unemployment in that period of 3,500. If that does not constitute an unemployment problem, I do not know what does and I completely defend my right hon. Friend's weekend speech.
Because they have been mentioned a great deal, I take this opportunity to refer to the economic development councils. These councils were heralded with loud trumpets. These were the Labour Party in action, and their setting up was the plan which, we had been told, would bring about dramatic changes and produce the answer to all our ills.
What have the councils achieved thus far'? We are told that they are making studies in depth. But how long will those studies in depth go on? I do not have the slightest doubt that the work of the economic planning councils may have very good effects in the long term, because we need much more statistical knowledge in the long term, but the North East is very worried about the short term. As any hon. or right hon Gentleman who represents the North East of England will discover if he talks to employers—this week-end I had the opportunity of speaking to the principal of a large department store about conditions, prospects and trade—there is anything but optimism about the future. Hon. Members will realise, therefore, that both employers and employed in the North East will welcome this Motion.
"Challenge to the Changing North" was produced by the Northern Economic Planning Council. It provided a mass of statistical information, much of which we knew already but some of which possibly


we did not know. There were certain recommendations and I will quote one:
The establishment of a technological university on Tees-side should be treated as a matter of great urgency".
In passing, I refer that recommendation to the Government for their consideration.
But I stress that this general planning —and there was so much trumpeting to herald it on the part of the Labour Government—in the North East of England has done nothing to extend that which was already there. The basis for the development of the region was well and truly laid in the time of a Conservative Government by Mr. Harold Macmillan, when he was Prime Minister, by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) and by my right hon. Friend the present Leader of the Opposition when he was President of the Board of Trade. It was my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, when he was President of the Board of Trade, who brought the Government Departments together under one roof.

Mr. Rhodes: I apologise to the hon. Member for not being here earlier in his speech, but I was in the Official Reporters room. I ask him to comment on the fact that during the supervision of his right hon. Friend the Member for Bexley (Mr. Heath) from the latter months of 1962 to the early months of 1964 there were over 50,000 unemployed in the region, a figure which the Chairman of the Tory Party described this week-end as a disgrace.

Mr. Elliott: I thought that I had answered that point when I quoted the number of industrial development certificates which had been issued. It was our work at that time which brought in new industry. Now we have had a check and we suffer from that check. We shall run into greater difficulties as a result. I repeat that we have an unemployment crisis in the North East of England. The hon. Member, I know, is a conscientious constituency Member and is fully aware of that situation.
Hon. Members representing development areas should never underestimate the problem which is caused by contracting industries. In opening the debate the hon.

Member for Stepney (Mr. Shore) spoke very sensibly on that point. It is an enormous problem when we have two basic industries in an area such as the North East—coal and ship building—which are contracting rapidly together. When I became a Member of the House 10 years ago the coal industry in Northumberland and Durham still employed about 100,000 men. That figure dropped rapidly to 90,000 and it is now getting near 80,000. What is even more worrying is that it will drop even more rapidly in the future.
It is not easy to replace the employment content of the coal mines with new light industry, so much of which we have been pleased to welcome to the North East of England. The general problem of new industries was sensibly touched on by my right hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Stepney. We must do more to study the new industry which has come to areas such as ours. There are growing pains for some of the industries. Hon. Members for the North East have visited a good number of these industries, and we know that they have had problems which with a little experience could be overcome. We need to look very hard at the problems of those industries which have come to development areas and to study them.
I should like to take the opportunity which several hon. Members have taken during the debate to welcome the principle involved in the new White Paper, or, if I may describe it more correctly, the new Green Paper. We support in principle that £100 million should be injected into the development areas. We on this side of the House believe that to be necessary. But many of us doubt very much—and certainly I doubt it very much—whether this money should be injected through the machinery of the Selective Employment Tax. I believe that the Selective Employment Tax has been very damaging to development areas, and I emphasise to the Government that there is a need in my area particularly for a greater concentration on the service industries and a greater improvement in the service industries. After saying that we should never overlook the problems of contracting major industries, the hon. Member for Stepney added that we must always recognise the importance of environment in an area which needs new industries. While welcoming the principle


of extra aid for development areas, I very much doubt whether the machinery of the discredited Selective Employment Tax is the way in which to do it.
We must also be ready to be more mobile within our area. I recall some of the debates which we had in times of Conservative Governments when hon. Members opposite, in all sincerity, wanted the development of an area such a; the North East on the basis of the redundant coal industry. If "Challenge of the Changing North" achieved anything useful, it was to be found in the suggestion that at long last there was a general acceptance of the growth area principle. It is all very well to talk about spreading the jam over a bigger area, but what the Government have come fully to realise in recent months is that there is not all that much jam to spread and that a concentration on areas most in need of assistance would be very beneficial indeed to areas such as mine As a Member for a development area, I therefore conclude by welcoming wholeheartedly our Motion, and I have the greatest pleasure in supporting it.

8.18 p.m.

Mr. Bert Hazell: In the concluding stage of the debate I am glad to have the opportunity to say a few words about the problems of the Eastern Region. There has, rightly, been much discussion of problems relating to the North-East, Scotland, Wales and other areas of heavy unemployment.
The Eastern Region is an area of mixed fortunes. In some parts of the region overspill is being provided for London, and in those parts employment prospects are quite good. But much of the region is rural in character. Hon. Members on both sides have referred to the problems which affect the rural areas of the country, particularly in view of the fact that agriculture, which plays such a prominent part, while maintaining and increasing production steadily year by year is, nevertheless, because of modern developments, employing fewer and fewer men.
The House will be aware that over the last two years the movement of workers from the land has been about 29,000 per year. This, of course, shows the rapidly changing trend within the agricultural industry, and this development throws up

considerable problems. How and where shall we find opportunities of employment for those who leave the agricultural industry? Particularly, what are the prospects of employment for the young men who are reared in the villages of our countryside?
We all of us had hopes when the regional economic planning councils were established that we should begin to see the outline of a trend for the future emerging from their reports. It will be recalled that when the programme for setting up the planning councils was envisaged it was intended that one council should operate for the whole South and Eastern region. As a result of suggestions from hon. Members from the Eastern Region we were able to persuade the Government to set up a specific council for the region because of its peculiar problems. That council has had regular meetings, but so far nothing appears to have emerged to give any indication of its thinking as to the future of that part of the country.
It is true that in some parts of the country the regional economic planning councils have issued substantial reports, and these act as a guideline to the future, but in the Eastern Region nothing so far has emerged—at any rate, I have not seen it. We are anxiously waiting to see whether a report is likely to be forthcoming in due course so that we may be able to see what are the lines of the planning council's thinking for the future of the Eastern area.
I want particularly to mention the County of Norfolk which, of all counties, is a purely agricultural one. In the northern part of the county we have no large cities or towns to which our young people can go. They are compelled to leave the villages in which they have been brought up, and the consequence is the depopulation of the rural parts of the county. In North Norfolk, at any rate, the age of the population is much higher than the age of the population in most other parts of the country.
If, to take the long-term view, we cannot maintain our young people and secure for them opportunities for employment in the areas in which they have been brought up, this area will, obviously, become semi-derelict. We cannot hope to maintain an ageing population unless there are within that population young


people to stimulate and make it a virile area.
We have some small industries which are associated with agriculture, such as canning industries, but these are very largely seasonal in character, and as a consequence we find our unemployment averaging 5 per cent. In some places it is rather more, but 5 per cent. is the average. This is very surprising indeed, because it has often been argued that a prosperous agricultural area suffers very little from unemployment. Such is not the case in our area.
I am concerned about the Green Paper —very much concerned. In the old days we used to regard an area of unemployment as being very suitable to rank for development grant. Now, in view of the geographically wider areas, an area such as mine, even with a figure of 5 per cent. unemployment, receives no support by development grant because, geographically, it is not large enough. It is true that there has been assistance from my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade in granting industrial development certificates where these have been sought, but the granting of a certificate without financial assistance such as has been available in development areas is not likely to attract much new industry into Norfolk; and with the added inducement which the Green Paper envisages the prospects of securing industry in such a county will be very small indeed.
I want to pay tribute to Norfolk County Council for the work which it has done in trying to encourage industry into the area, but only last week I received a letter from a firm which had been set up at Sheringham at the request of the council, giving details of the cost of its building. The firm said that while it recognised at that time a grant was not available to build its factory, nevertheless it hoped that if it came into the area, because of the pressure it received from the council to move into Norfolk, a grant might be available. It is not possible in this instance under the present regulations.
The possibilities of getting new industries, even small ones, into a county like Norfolk, with 5 or 6 per cent. unemployment, are very remote if there is not to be financial aid available, and particularly if the suggestions in the Green Paper are

implemented, because that will add a further inducement to manufacturers to seek to go to the areas where the money goes, too.
My time is almost up, but there is just one other point I should like to make, and it is this. Gas has been discovered in considerable quantities in the North Sea off the Norfolk coast. It looks as though the point of entry may well be in my constituency. In a small way, this will help to find employment, but delays in ordinary planning approvals are causing a good deal of concern. After a 12-day hearing and an inspector's report submitted to the Minister, the Minister decided that the inquiry should be reopened. The reopening of the inquiry is due to take place next month.
The companies concerned in the discovery of gas in the North Sea are very anxious. Unless they can begin to connect their pipes during the summer months, 12 months will have elapsed before they can bring this valuable raw material on to the beaches. This, at a time when we know that gas can be of material aid to the economy of the country, would be disastrous.
We ought to given every encouragement to make sure that this new raw material is brought in at the earliest possible date, and I therefore hope that the Minister responsible will not delay his ultimate decision once the report of his inspector is to hand following the reopened inquiry.
I stress the fact—and I hope that it will not fall on deaf ears—that rural areas such as Norfolk require new industry, and I hope that this will not be overlooked when the terms of the Green Paper ultimately become accepted fact; otherwise. I can see areas like Norfolk gradually becoming derelict. No one will wish to go there even to enjoy what facilities there are on the Norfolk coast during the summer season if villages become derelict.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. Michael Noble: The debate has been an extremely interesting one and in a different category from a great many debates of this sort to which I have listened in the past.
I listened with particular interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Hazel]) because he was


raising problems which are very real not only in his own constituency but in a great many different parts of the country. He was stressing the inevitable difficulty, particularly once there are even larger development areas than we have had before, for the areas which have been described as "grey". That may or may not be an accurate description of them. Certainly the hon. Member for Exeter (Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody) had nothing particularly grey in her appearance before us this evening.
The debate was opened for the Government by the Joint Under-Secretary of State for Economic Affairs in what could be described as a very careful speech. He assured us at the end of it that he was certainly not complacent, even if he sounded so. I am prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt on that, because I know how difficult it is to do many of the things which his right hon. and hon. Friends promised, so to speak, in his name in 1964 and 1966 and then found almost impossible to achieve, as has been demonstrated since.
He talked in particular about the development areas and said that they had achieved at best an unemployment rate of 2·8 per cent. What he did not tell us was whether he regarded that as satisfactory. That is one of the problems which have bedevilled all discussions on unemployment for as long as most of us have been alive. I remember the late Hugh Gaitskell saying that 3 per cent. was full employment. I remember the present Prime Minister saying that about 2 or 2½ per cent. was perfectly acceptable. I agree with the view which has been expressed that, for development areas, even 2·8 per cent. is not satisfactory if it is to be the long-term level. It is equally true that if vast areas of Scotland, Wales, Norfolk and other places could get down to a steady 2·8 per cent., they would feel that there had been an enormous change.
In the course of his speech the hon. Gentleman told the House something which was not entirely new, and I was hoping for more original ideas from someone who, I understand, has spent so much of his time in a research department. He said that it is impossible to run the rest of the country at boom conditions and believe that that in itself will cure the regional imbalance. That is perfectly self-evident, and has been clear for

the last twenty years at least. Whether it is true or not, he did not address himself to the point which my right hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) made clearly, that the position of the country cannot be improved by "clobbering" the consumer industries so that the prosperous areas are reduced in effectiveness and thereby a phoney better balance is created between the regions.
In my comparatively short time in the House and my short experience of the problem, if one thing has become apparent, it is that one never gets major expansion in Wales, the North East, the South West, Scotland or anywhere else when the rest of the country is in recession. If it is found necessary to close down on the economy, as happened in July when Scottish industry was by no means fully stretched, that is economically had for the country as a whole.
What both sides of the House have been trying to do, successfully more or less according to the period, is to get the whole country running at something like a level production figure. I do not remember offhand exactly what the position was in Scotland in July last year, but I suspect that it was running at about 90 per cent. of its production capacity. Yet that had to be stamped on, as it had to be stamped on in 1961 and earlier "stop-go" periods, because the rest of the country was going too fast. This is bad economics from the country's point of view, and devastating to the people who live in those regions, and this, apart from anything else, was one of the many things which we were promised would never happen again.
Then the hon. Gentleman said, and, I think, without any justification at least in the last few years, that the Opposition could not make up their minds whether to have a full regional policy or not. If he is referring to the fact that there were, and, I have no doubt, still are, some of my right hon. and hon. Friends who believe in letting the market take its course, he is right, but do not let him forget that it was this party which in 1962–63 initiated almost every idea which his party is now carrying on. The Government have made a few changes and improvements, but if I may dare say so with the Secretary of State for Scotland present, I have not yet seen any part of the country which has


matched what the Scottish Office was able to produce in 1962, 1963 and 1964. Indeed, I doubt whether any part of the country is matching it today, because in Scotland, for special reasons, we have been able to produce a much more effective policy. We dislike calling it a regional policy because we regard ourselves as a country; but we led in this field, and I believe that we still do.
This policy, which was initiated by the White Paper on Development in Central Scotland, was followed almost immediately by the North-Eastern Plan, and we hoped that the problems of the North-East were going a long way to being solved by the action which was then taken. I was therefore depressed, as I know my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North (Mr. R. W. Elliott) was, to have to record that after a period of considerable success, last month's figures show, instead of an increase in employment of 3,000, a drop of 1,000, showing that this problem, which two years ago looked to be well on the way to solution, has had a serious relapse.
I beg hon. Gentlemen opposite not to think that this gives any satisfaction to those who have worked and thought hard about this. We are every bit as keen as they are to see the policies which we produced being developed if they are successful and if they are producing the right sort of results, and it is only when they fail to do that, and when we believe that the Government are failing to take, the decisions which they ought to take, that we feel we have to be critical of them.
I agree with the Joint Under-Secretary that during the past few years the Government have been prepared to intervene; but this is not a new Socialist idea. It was done quite considerably through the Conservative era, but it is not good enough merly to intervene. One must intervene to be effective, and one must intervene on things which are going to be economically viable and produce the results that one wants. I think that this is the point which was dealt with by the hon. Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson).
The next section which the hon. Gentleman took was one in which he said that it was not the July measures which had caused the regional problems. Everybody in the House knows this. The July

measures were quite separate and distinct from the regional problems, but what we were told at the time was that the regions would be sheltered from the results of these things, and of course they cannot be, and they have not been.
I hope very much that when the right hon. Gentleman replies to the debate he will be able to tell the House what has happened to the number of i.d.c.s which were available in the regions since July. It is all very well for people in the regions to see what is happening before their eyes, but if we are to get confidence back, they have to know, as I believe the figures may well be beginning to show, that after a disastrous fall for a number of months after July the number of people—I hope and pray that this is so—interested in going to the regions and applying for i.d.c.s to do so is going up.
The freeze, in itself, inevitably has serious repercussions on the regions; it cannot be otherwise. It was quite clear that if one had a freeze of wages the only way in which one could get more money was to move to an area where higher rates of wages were being paid. Although the figures are not yet available, I am sure that the Secretary of State for Scotland will agree that all the available evidence shows that migration from Scotland has been increasing rather than decreasing.
A second, perhaps smaller, but nonetheless important point, in a period of freeze —a point which I took up with the right hon. Gentleman and the Minister of Labour some months ago—is that if there is a big contract in a development area and if the costs of a certain type of building are likely to be high, the contract is almost bound to go to a London contractor who is paying very high hourly rates —perhaps building at London Airport. London contractors of this sort can get people to go to places like Dounreay, whereas a builder from Aberdeen cannot because he cannot pay the wages.

Mr. Ross: It was a Scottish contractor who built Dounreay.

Mr. Noble: The contractor who wished to apply for the contract to do the new work there said that it was totally impossible because the rates demanded by the unions for working there were several shillings an hour above those that he was paying in Aberdeen, and he was therefore


not able to tender for the contract. The right hon. Gentleman has all the facts and figures, because I kept him fully informed of the correspondence I was having with his right hon. Friend.
It is also difficult to justify the argument that in a period of freeze it is right to be brutal to N.A.L.G.O. and the electricians while at the same time allowing the National Coal Board to increase the price of coal, the Electricity Board to increase the price of electricity and the Post Office—because it came in, in some sort of budgetary way, in the middle of the July measures—to increase postal charges. This does not make sense to people living in development areas. They ask, "Why should we, in a period of freeze, be expected to pay more money to nationalised industries which are controlled by the Government when we are not allowed to pay more money to people we may desperately need?" Although the July measures are not responsible for the problem, they have done a great deal to aggravate it.
The Minister went on to refer to eight points. First, he talked about the comprehensive national plan. There is no objection to that, but the First Secretary has already withdrawn the National Plan for England as being in need of major revision, although the Secretary of State has not done the same for Scotland. A comprehensive plan that within a year of publication has to be withdrawn in order to be rethought is not a great incentive or inducement to industry.
We have heard today a number of complaints about the formation of the boards which will examine everything in depth. The bon. Member for Exeter complained that it was impossible to get people of sufficiently high calibre. Few hon. Members know what the boards are doing. They have been in existence for varying lengths of time, but no reports and very little official information have come out about them.
I read, as perhaps the Minister did, the report called "Is Regionalism Working?" in New Society on 15th December, by Ian Gough, of the Department of Social Administration of the University of Manchester. He obviously took a great deal of trouble to discover what was happening. Some of the things he said closely accord with points made on both sides

this evening. In one part of the report he said:
More often than not, they"—
the regional planning boards—
are asked at the last minute to look at the regional implications of policies which departments have already determined and for which annual estimates have already been agreed.
He said later:
The boards have been given too little information too late, and at most they and the councils can suggest only minor alterations.
Also,
It is unlikely that the councils' views would carry much weight on what are essentially political matters, since they are not elected.
We all hope that these councils and boards will play a useful part, but it is clear that to get a number of people together to talk is of limited value and that the talk will be useful only if they are supported by really good research organisations. If not, they will not know what they are talking about.
To hark back for a second to the past, the genuine success of the Scottish Development Group, which was a different concept, was due to the fact that it was made up from Government Departments, that it had the research facilities, that it did not have to talk in public and that it had to produce results—which I am glad to say it did. I do not wonder that there is a certain amount of frustration among the general public.
I should like the right hon. Gentleman to clear up what the Joint Under-Secretary of State said about i.d.c.s and special help. He said that since 1964 the i.d.c.s had increased from 26 per cent. to 34 per cent. and the special help from £23 million to £45 million. Are these for comparable areas, as I have no figures with which to check them? If they are, the Government get the credit which they deserve and I do not want to take it away. However, if the figures are comparable but by a curious chance the development districts have almost doubled in size, the advantage is very small and might even be negatived. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman can say that these are comparable in area as well as in amount—not offhand, obviously.
I am all for the hon. Gentleman claiming merit where he can, and he claimed


that the new policy of investment grants, the success of which he did not want to evaluate as it has had only a short time to run, had one great merit, that the grants were much clearer to the industries concerned. If this is so—and I will give him the point—then for a Government which has brought in Corporation Tax, Capital Gains Tax and the Land Commission to produce anything clearer is such a blessed relief for every company accountant in the country that I am amazed that they have not all accepted their investment grants without even reading the paper.
The hon. Gentleman was less than forthcoming about the future. He said that we must not be over-mechanical in interpreting the statistics. He told us—I can understand this—that one cannot immediately project what happened in 1961–62, which was so different from what happened in 1966–67, to the next year. I hope that one could not, because since 1961–62—whatever hon. Gentlemen opposite may say—a vast change has occurred in most development areas and a great deal of new industry has replaced the heavy industry, like coal mines, which was collapsing. We all hope that next year will be nothing like as bad or the weather so bad as it was in 1962–63.
Whatever they may be, we did not get much in the way of forecasts or ideas from the Joint Under-Secretary. He told us simply that in 1961–62 the Opposition had no regional policy. Perhaps we did not. But, if I may talk about Scotland, during that period Colvilles came to Scotland, Bathgate came to Scotland and Linwood was planned to come to Scotland. I am taking no credit for this—it was before my day—but these things happened even if we did not have a regional policy. I would rather that things happened without a regional policy than have a regional policy and have nothing happen.
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman listened to his hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson), who talked with great local knowledge—because it is in his constituency—about Colvilles and said that what is necessary at Colvilles is a comparatively small increase in the plant, bringing in tin-plate manufacture, galvanising, and so on. The Government have been looking at this

matter for two and a half years, and perhaps the Secretary of State for Scotland may be able tonight to announce that that is his policy. Those are the sort of things which will be known to the right hon. Gentleman—his hon. Friend must have told him about them—and it might well be that he has decided to do it.
I come now to the Green Paper. There are obviously problems, and it is right that the House should not try to come to specific definite conclusions today. I do not take the point made by the Joint Under-Secretary that it was a bull point for the Government to produce a Paper of this sort before the Opposition put down their Motion. It is a buff point for any Government to discuss any ideas at any time, and I am delighted that they have done it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean) and the hon. Member for Norfolk, North brought out the problem that different development areas are not the same and that something which may be totally and absolutely right for the North East, where there is a high concentration of labour-intensive industries, might be disastrous for the Highlands, where there is practically no, or very little, labour-intensive industry. Therefore, the problem has to be studied with care and in depth. I beg the Government, when they have studied it, not to try to produce something that is universally grey for the whole country but to try genuinely to be selective and pick out what is needed for the differing parts of the development areas and treat them practically and sensibly according to their needs.
It is true that if there is a labour-intensive industry somewhere in the Highlands, it is delighted that it should get the premium—it may make the difference between success and failure—but the Joint Under-Secretary talked about the pull of the Metropolis, and this is very real and true. There is, however, another pull which is going on throughout the whole country, and that is the pull to the nearest big city. It does not matter whether it is Newcastle, the Central Belt of Scotland or wherever it may be. It is extremely important to consider the large premium payment which is envisaged to see what the effect will be if people are pulled in from all the surrounding areas—in the case of


Scotland, the Borders, the Highlands, Perthshire, and so on—to the centre because of the extra demand for labour there.
I am not certain that we can be at all convinced that it will go very far, as the hon. Gentleman suggested that it might, to reduce unit costs of production. In so many of these areas wages are already a good deal lower than in Birmingham and the South East. It is at least possible that, human nature being what it is, when the firms are being paid considerable amounts per man employed, employees may take the opportunity of saying, "You are getting so much for employing me. I want my wage made up to the London or Birmingham level." That at least would be a very human reaction. If that is so, the unit costs of production, which in the past have been lower in Scotland than anywhere else in the United Kingdom, will tend to rise and we shall not get the reduction in costs of which the Joint Under-Secretary spoke.
The Joint Under-Secretary asked himself: can we really stimulate demand? I believe that this may stimulate some demand, but the Government could do a great deal more, as we were continually urged to do, by seeing that some of the very large Government contracts—for the Post Office, the Armed Forces, and so on—were funnelled into the development areas. I know that it is difficult, and I know the problems and the cost, but this is the way in which one can get work going there if one is prepared to accept the implications.
The hon. Gentleman finished by asking whether we could avoid increased taxation while helping with the regional problems. All I can say is that on the evidence we have at the moment the answer is quite clearly "No".
Time is short, but one should mention several other important points which all have a very important part in the regional problems we are debating. There is the problem of migration. I felt tremendously jealous when my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, North (Mr. Henry Clark) told us that the Northern Ireland Government had been able to cut net emigration there. I wish the Secretary of State for Scotland could say the same for our country. It is not only the crude numbers, which add to the unemployment

figures, but the fact that we are losing skills. That is very important.
The Secretary of State for Scotland spoke at the weekend of the importance of housing in relation to migration. I do not want to re-open that question, but neither in Scotland nor in any part of the development areas has the present Government's housing record been good—[Interruption.]—I will not be tempted now, but I could go on for a long time on that one.
We have the problem of roads—

Mr. Rhodes: rose—

Mr. Noble: I am afraid that I cannot give way: I have only a minute or two left.
My hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North stressed the importance of roads to the development areas, and he was dead right. Good communications are probably the most important attraction to industry there is. To make another small but quick point, one knows the extreme importance of the rate burdens on both commercial and industrial development.
The picture as we see it at the moment, therefore, is that production in the country as a whole has been going down and industry's confidence has been falling. Does the Secretary of State believe that he can get production up and confidence rising again this year or, indeed, next year? If he does so, and if he can tell us why, we will do our best to help him. Government investment during the period has been extremely high and private investment has been low. We were told during the Budget debate that if private investment picked up, Government investment would have to drop back a bit because there would not be room for both within the national resources. If that is so, can we have a guarantee that if Government investment is cut back it will not be cut back in the development areas? Will they this time be really sheltered?
Can the Secretary of State tell us what is the current net gain of jobs? He has said that there have been 6,000 extra jobs in Scotland in the next few months but in the next few months we have also been sadly aware of rather more than 6,000 jobs lost in big industries that have published their redundancies. Can


we know how these are going and what action is being taken in the scattered areas, perhaps, to try to keep, for instance, the chipboard factory going at Inverness—very important to a much wider area than Inverness itself—and in Kintyre, in my own constituency?
The hon. Member for Motherwell, whom we were all delighted to hear in the Chamber again, was obviously in some difficulty, because while he was saying that the gentleman in Whitehall generally knows better he was also saying that Scotland suffers from the Scots. I was not quite certain into which of the two categories he put the Secretary of State for Scotland.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will answer the questions raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr), but when he does so I trust that he will try to compare like with like because he inherited, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer said, Scotland doing "pretty well in 1964". There has been very little improvement in what I understand is called the activity rate in Scotland since the right hon. Gentleman went there. People there are no longer finding him credible. One can see that in the results at Pollok—and not just at Pollok, but at Nuneaton, Rhondda, West and Honiton. They are not any longer believing him. I am sure he used his best endeavours at Dunoon, in my constituency, when he attended the S.T.U.C. conference. Those there did not believe him either.
I sincerely hope that in replying to the debate the right hon. Gentleman will stick to the positive things which he believes he can do. If he thinks that the country is ready to accept stories about the awful atrocities for which Tories were responsible back in the 'thirties, as the hon. Member for Stepney suggested, that will not carry any weight outside this House, even though the Government get their majority tonight. As the Foreign Secretary was reported as saying to a heckler last night, "Come outside and I will show you". I hope that the Secretary of State will go outside, into Scotland, and see for himself, and I hope that for once he will listen and not lecture.

9.1 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. William Ross): When the right hon.

Member for Argyll (Mr. Noble) talks about credibility we have to judge it on the promises, pledges and everything else which he and his party supporters have been putting forward tonight; and look at their credibility. He mentioned the meeting at Dunoon during the week-end. One thing which neither he, as Secretary of State, nor any Tory Secretary of State, ever did was to speak to the Scottish Trade Union Congress. [An HON. MEMBER: "They were never invited."] If the right hon. Gentleman had put out feelers he would have been invited. Then he would have heard some very hard words about Tory Governments of the past and the hope that we never have one again.
I express appreciation of the fact that we have had this Supply day debate on regional development problems. It was overdue. When we were in opposition we used to have two days every year devoted to discussion of Scottish industry and employment. We have not had a day's debate on this subject in the past two and a half years. When we were in opposition we had a debate which was purely Scottish, not one which was mixed up with the important problems of Wales, the West Country and the North of England. I can understand the reason for that. As soon after the election as possible, the right hon. Gentleman started predicting disaster for all the regions.
I believe that it was the hon. Member for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Buchanan-Smith) who suggested that we inherited a wonderful situation. What a wonderful situation it was for the whole country! We had to take strict measures right at the start to deal with the balance of payments. [Laughter.] Hon. Members opposite cannot laugh off a debt of £840 million. Even though we succeeded in halving that debt in one year it could not be considered funny and cannot be laughed off now. [An HON. MEMBER: "It has nothing to do with the debate."] It had something to do with what the right hon. Gentleman was referring to in 1955 and 1957 and 1961. It is implicit in everything that has been said today.
The right hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. R. Carr) was comparing 1961 with today. What was he worried about when making that comparison? It was simply


that right hon. Members opposite had a situation in which the balance of payments was menaced and they had to take certain actions. We took action not because of our mismanagement of the balance of payments, but because of the unhealthy position we inherited from the Tories. They should be ashamed. As soon as we started to deal with the problems they bequeathed to us, they started predicting disaster. They were sorry that it did not come.

Mr. George Younger: Did it not?

Mr. Ross: No. We were able to shield the development areas. Hon. Members opposite should read the report made in December, 1965, by Lord Polwarth, of the Scottish Council.
No one ever pretended that the whole of the development areas could be offered full shelter in the July measures. We said that we would take certain measures to shelter them as far as possible. Everyone knows that it is impossible entirely to shelter development areas when a Government are working on an overall economic policy.
I will remind hon. Members opposite of what has happened. From listening to hon. Members opposite one would think that fro in 1951 to 1964 we had Governments who were pledged to driving themselves and working themselves to the bone for regional policies. This was not so. Part of our anger during those years arose because we saw the dismantlement of the training centres and the abandonment of advance factories as a way of dealing with the imbalance. It took us 10 years to convince the Tories to go in for advance factory building. It was not until 1957–58 that they started to wake up and realise that there was a problem.
In 1961, one of the things which they did, but which we never did—[An HON. MEMBER: "What about the Amendment?"] This is related to the Amendment. They stopped house building in Scotland. They cut it down. The right hon. Member for Argyll spoke about the number of houses built in Scotland. In the first year after he became Secretary of State for Scotland the number of houses built in Scotland was 26,000. In 1953, nine years earlier, the number built was 39,000. The Tories never got back to

that figure. In 1962, they cut down on school building and on roads.
The right hon. Gentleman talked about the great years. I have here the Report of the Estimates Committee on the working of the Local Employment Act, 1960, which was to sort everything out, according to the then President of the Board of Trade, who later became Chancellor of the Exchequer. In March, 1960, in the development areas of Scotland alone—just when this Act got on to the Statute Book—there were 55,487 unemployed. In April, 1963, after three years' terrific drive to get rid of the problem, the number of unemployed in those areas was 99,989. In Scotland itself it was 134,000.
Now the Tories are complaining of being worried that the number is 85,000. We have a right to be worried. We have always been worried. Hon. Members opposite never lost many nights' sleep over Scotland's problems.

Mr. Noble: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving): The right hon. Gentleman is obviously not giving way.

Hon. Members: Disgraceful.

Mr. Ross: The Report of the Estimates Committee—[HON. MEMBERS: "Give way."]—published on 15th May, 1963, on the administration of the Local Employment Act, had this to say:
Expenditure under the Act seems to be falling, in fact, at a time when the need for it is generally agreed to be greater than ever.
That was the priority which right hon. and hon. Members opposite had.
The right hon. Member for Argyll talked about the Planning Board and said that this was a development of the Scottish Development Group. It was. I think that we have certain advantages in Scotland in that we have a self-contained region, with a Controller for the Ministry of Labour and the Board of Trade, all there on a regional basis. Within that set-up, we have been able to collect a general staff of civil servants in the Planning Board, bringing in people from the nationalised industries as well, with the Planning Council using them. Perhaps we are better off than other areas.

Mr. H. Clark: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Could you advise the House whether it would be in order


for the Secretary of State to talk about developments outside Scotland?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order.

Mr. Ross: The hon. Member for Antrim, North (Mr. H. Clark) will appreciate that the Report of the Estimates Committee to which I referred dealt not just with Scotland, but with the whole country.

Sir Frederick Bennett: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have sat here throughout the debate. This is a perfectly genuine point which I wish to raise with you. I understood that the Minister would deal with the whole subject of the debate, which covers all the regions and not just one. I feel that we have—[An HON. MEMBER; "Come to the point."]—I am prepared to make my point of order to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker—

Mr. Archie Manuel: It is not a point of order at all.

Sir F. Bennett: I want to give the Minister the maximum time to reply. Perhaps I may be allowed to put my point of order in silence.
I would like you, Mr. Deputy Speaker—

Hon. Members: Sit down.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. With respect, I think that the hon. Gentleman has made his point of order. It is up to the Minister to deal with the question in the way in which he thinks appropriate. If the House will listen to him, we may enter a wider field of discussion.

Mr. Ross: Hon. Members will appreciate that I have to answer some of the points put by the right hon. Member for Argyll, the former Secretary of State for Scotland.
The right hon. Gentleman spoke of what had been done and referred to the plan for Central Scotland. But this was something put forward at the very last minute, in November, 1963. Perhaps hon. Members opposite forget what the right hon. Gentleman said about it. This is on the question of credibility. In winding up the debate on 3rd December, 1963, he said:
… this is the first attempt really to get things in Scotland put right."—[OFFICIAL

REPORT, 3rd December, 1963; Vol. 685, c. 1105.]
It was late, on 3rd December, 1963, to admit that he and his right hon. Friends had been wasting their time for 12 years. Yet now they ask us to accept their concern today as genuine.

Mr. Noble: I used to give way.

Mr. Ross: I do not know to whom the right hon. Gentleman gave way, but it was seldom to me.
The right hon. Member for Mitcham, in opening the debate, asked that we should deal with this matter constructively, but he spent a good deal of his time bashing the Government, presumably leaving it to everyone else to concentrate on the subject of debate. Some of the points which the right hon. Gentleman made, notably those on the selective employment premium, were fairly made. The same is true of the right hon. Member for Argyll. We ought not to come to hasty conclusions about this, but, on the other hand, we must recognise that it is directed at the problem of manufacturing industry. There may well be a problem for tourism, for example, but it does not necessarily follow that the one is related to the other, or that this is the only solution for all the problems of the areas.
The right hon. Member for Argyll had already committed himself. When we were discussing the proposal for a selective employment premium—I think that this came in an intervention in a speech by his right hon. Friend the Member for the City of Chester (Mr. Temple), during the Budget debate—the right hon. Gentleman said that the selective employment premium would do great harm. [An HON. MEMBER: "It has."] Selective employment premium has not even started yet. The hon. Gentleman thinks that we are talking about Selective Employment Tax. He had better wake up. Selective employment premium is only a proposal in the Green Paper. The right hon. Member for Argyll was at odds with some of his hon. Friends about the proposal.
The right hon. Member for Mitcham asked about the question of clarity. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I wish to hear the debate.

Mr. Ross: The right hon. Member for Mitcham said that any incentives should be certain, clear and speedy. I do not think that he would deny that there was a lack of clarity about what people would gain from the investment allowances and free depreciation. Among the factors that led people to welcome the change we made were the aspects of clarity, certainty and speed. The Scottish Council was quite sure that the new cash grants, with their 20 cent. advantage over non-development areas, would make Scotland an even easier location to sell. That was the opinion of people in the business of attracting industry into Scotland, and I have never seen that denied in any way.
The right hon. Member for Mitcham also asked us about the slow rate of completions of buildings for which I.D.C.s are granted, and that question was also hinted at by the right hon. Member for Argyll. They will be pleased to know that completions in the three main development areas—Scotland the North and Wales—increased to 9·8 million in 1965, compared with 7·7 million in 1964, and in the first half of 1966 the rate of completions was much the same as a year earlier. The right hon. Gentleman expressed fears about slowing down, but there is no indication of any slowing down this year.

Mr. R. Carr: The official figures show that there was a slowing down in completions in the first half of 1966 compared with 1965. How can the right hon. Gentleman say what he is saying?

Mr. Ross: I am giving the right hon. Gentleman the official figures.
The right hon. Member for Mitcham spoke about the future industrial prospects and the C.B.I. survey. Manufacturing investment in 1966 was higher than was originally estimated by the Board of Trade, which has no evidence that during the last few months manufacturing industry generally has become more pessimistic about the future, and that is also true about Scotland. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The House must leave it to the protagonists.

Mr. Ross: The survey must be viewed against what was projected in 1966 and what actually happened. I am sorry that hon. Members opposite did not get the

pessimistic answers they expected. Encouragement to invest is provided by the increase we have made in the investment grant, raising it from 40 to 45 per cent. in the development areas and to 25 per cent. elsewhere. That was not taken fully into account by the C.B.I. survey, which should be viewed against those increases.
I do not doubt that many firms are now taking advantage of the increased grants, and that is reflected in the number of industrial development certificates issued, not only in Scotland but in other parts of the development areas, during the first quarter of 1967. Scottish hon. Members will be delighted to know that inquiries, far from dropping off, are increasing; projects approved, far from dropping off, have increased, and the total of 80 is the highest number we have had in the 1960s in Scotland. They will provide over 6,000 jobs, something that was never equalled during the drives that we have heard about that took place in 1962, 1963 and 1964. In 1962, the number of jobs for the whole year did not amount to more than 10,000. This is what we were able to do in one quarter.

Mr. R. Carr: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman does not wish to mislead the House in a matter of fact. Is he aware that I have before me the Monthly Digest of Statistics, an official Government publication? This shows that the building completions in Scotland and in the North, to mention just two of the development regions, were smaller in the first half of 1966 than in the first half of 1965?

Mr. Ross: This does not mean that there was a hold-up, a slowing-down of completions in the projects that had been approved. These full figures with 1966—[Interruption.] What hon. Members have been trying to suggest is that the I.D.C.s having been granted, there has been no, proceeding to the actual work, but they have been quite wrong.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Argyll asked me if the figures given by my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary about I.D.C.s were for comparable areas. They are. They refer to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, so like was compared with like. We have had further comments from some hon. Members about the Green Paper. The hon. and learned Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) spoke about the middle


band. To my mind that had agricultural connotations, and I think that he had better stick to the grey areas.
The trouble about this is that whether one has a development area, a development district or a development region, one has a boundary. I appreciate the difficulties about this contiguous situation. We have the problem in Scotland of Leith and Edinburgh. This is something implicit in the definition of development districts and something that we have to bear. I want to express my appreciation to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, East (Mr. Rhodes) for his robust and angry speech. It was a worthwhile one, pointing out the change over I.D.C.s in relation to these areas. My hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell (Mr. Lawson) returned to our debates, to which he is no stranger. I can assure him that I certainly welcome his support from the back benches. I was not altogether happy about his suggestion that we were over-confident when we were in opposition. We were not over-confident. We knew that we could do better than that lot and we are doing better. [An HON. MEMBER: "County council elections."] County council elections have not taken place in Scotland yet.
My hon. Friend spoke about selective development appropriate to particular areas. This is exactly what is being done at present. He referred to fish farming. He will be glad to know that already there is interest in Artoe and Inverailort. I do not recognise psychological barriers to the Scots doing well with their own problems and helping others as well.
My hon. Friend the Member for Middleton and Prestwich (Mr. Coe), made a very constructive and stimulating speech. I want to suggest to him that there is flexibility for I.D.C.s outside of development areas where special problems can be recognised, and in respect of which action can be taken. He made the very important point about the disadvantage of environment. This is the special characteristic of our old development areas, although not the only one. There are old areas which are still prosperous, but which still need cleaning up. I appreciate the concern of the E.P.C.s in these areas, which want to get on with the job. My hon. Friend asked me to look into the crystal ball about the tie-up with the new local government set-up. It would be

very foolish to prophesy what would be the outcome.
The hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) was quite right to speak of the new adventurers on the Conservative benches. They are discovering something new every week. Last week, as he said, it was child poverty. This week it is the regions. They may even discover themselves in their own weaknesses if they go far enough.
The hon. Member asked whether it would be possible to vary the investment grants and the S.E.P. in development areas. He should appreciate that the variety is already there in loans and grants under the Local Employment Acts. Those are advantages for projects which are capital intensive and there is a balancing feature with the new S.E.P. if the projects are labour intensive.
The hon. Member spoke of housing. In Scotland, we have nothing to apologise for about housing. [Interruption.] I do not know where hon. Members were when the Tories were not building houses in Scotland. During their last two and a half years they built 74,000 houses in Scotland, whereas since we became the Government we have completed 90,000. They left office with houses under construction and awaiting approval numbering 55,000, whereas today the number is nearly 70,000.
Hon. Members spoke of the energy of my hon. Friend the Minister of State: we are now seeing the results of that energy. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. There are too many spontaneous debaters about at the moment.

Mr. Ross: I am satisfied—[HON. MEMBERS: "We are not."] During the past two and a half years we have nearly doubled the number for new industries. In Scotland and the other development areas, the advance factory programme which we initiated and which has meant for Scotland about 34 advance factories is not to be the end of the line. Before very long, my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade will be announcing yet another round of advance factories and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales is working on the process of getting a "land bank" to be ready to take full advantage of that.
When I think of the number of debates on this subject in which I have participated I can well understand why hon. Members opposite have been quiet about it, because their record in this respect is the blackest of all their records. The right hon. Member for Argyll became Secretary of State for Scotland in July, 1962. Within six months, the number of unemployed in Scotland had practically doubled. When we get to the stage when we have done as badly as he did, hon. Member will be entitled to criticise us and my hon. Friends will not allow us to forget a performance like that.
I understand exactly why hon. Members opposite have been quiet about it. It is because their consciences have been troubling them. Even the "cloth cap commissioner" who went to the North-East went far too late, and I can assure hon. Members opposite that it is far too late to suggest to the people of the development areas that the Conservatives are really concerned about their well-being.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: rose—

Hon. Members: Sit down.

Mr. Ross: I ask my hon. and right hon. Friends to support us in the Lobby.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Taylor.

Mr. Taylor: rose—

Hon. Members: Sit down.

Mr. Taylor: The right hon. Gentleman had had a go at me several times and I have never had a chance to get back at him. [Interruption.] During our 13 years of power, we never had—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I wish to hear the hon. Member who has caught my eye.

Mr. Taylor: The Secretary of State—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. This noise is no good to anybody. Mr. Taylor.

Mr. Taylor: rose—

Hon. Members: Sit down.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member—

Hon. Members: He is walking out.

Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question:—

The House divided: Ayes 220, Noes 274.

Division No. 314.]
AYES
[9.30 p.m.


Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)
Carlisle, Mark
Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford &amp; Stone)


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert
Galbraith, Hn. T. G.


Astor, John
Cary, Sir Robert
Gibson-Watt, David


Atkins, Humphrey (M't'n &amp; M'd'n)
Channon, H. P. G.
Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)


Awdry, Daniel
Chichester-Clark, R.
Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)


Baker, W H. K.
Clark, Henry
Glover, Sir Douglas


Balniel, Lord
Clegg, Walter
Glyn, Sir Richard


Barber, R1. Hn. Anthony
Cooke, Robert
Codber, Rt. Hn. J. B.


Batsford, Brian
Cooper-Key, Sir Neill
Goodhew, Victor


Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton
Cordle, John
Gower, Raymond


Bell, Ronald
Corfield, F. V.
Grant, Anthony


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)
Costain, A. P.
Grant-Ferris, R.


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos &amp; Fhm)
Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)
Gresham Cooke, R.


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Cawley, Aidan
Grieve, Percy


Biffen, John
Crouch, David
Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.


Biggs-Davison, John
Crowder, F. P.
Gurden, Harold


Birch, Rt. Hn. Nigel
Cunningham, Sir Knox
Hall, John (Wycombe)


Black, Sir Cyril
Currie, G. B. H.
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.


Blaker, Peter
Dalkeith, Earl of
Hamilton, Marquess of (Fermanagh)


Body, Richard
Dance, James
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)


Bossom, Sir Clive
Dean, Paul (Somerset, N.)
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn, John
Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. (Ashford)
Harrison, Brian (Maldon)


Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward
Doughty, Charles
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)


Braine, Bernard
Drayson, G. B.
Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere


Brinton, Sir Tatton
du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward
Hastings, Stephen


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter
Eden, Sir John
Hawkins, Paul


Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)
Hay, John


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Errington, Sir Eric
Heald, Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel


Bryan, Paul
Eyre, Reginald
Heseltine, Michael


Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N &amp; M)
Fisher, Nigel
Higgins, Terence L.


Buck, Antony (Colchester)
Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Hiley, Joseph


Bullus, Sir Eric
Forrest, George
Hill, J. E. B.


Burden, F. A.
Fortescue, Tim
Hobson, Rt. Hn. Sir John


Gampbell, Gordon
Foster, Sir John
Hogg, Rt. Hn. Quintin




Holland, Philip
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.
Sinclair, Sir George


Hooson, Emlyn
Mills, Peter (Torrington)
Smith, John


Hornby, Richard
Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)
Stainton, Keith


Howell, David (Guildford)
Miscampbell, Norman
Steel, David (Roxburgh)


Hunt, John
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Stodart, Anthony


Hutchison, Michael Clark
Monro, Hector
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M. (Ripon)


Iremonger, T. L.
Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)
Summers, Sir Spencer


Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Tapsell, Peter


Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)


Jennings, J. C. (Burton)
Munro-Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcart)


Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)
Murton, Oscar
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)
Nabarro, Sir Gerald
Teeling, Sir William


Jopling, Michael
Neave, Airey
Temple, John M.


Kaberry, Sir Donald
Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret


Kerby, Capt. Henry
Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael
Tilney, John


Kimball, Marcus
Nott, John
Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.


King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Onslow, Cranley
van straubenzee, W. R.


Kitson, Timothy
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn. Sir John


Knight, Mrs. Jill
Osborn, John (Hallam)
Wainwright, Richard (Come Valley)


Lambton, Viscount
Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)
Walker, Peter (Worcester)


Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Pearson, Sir Frank (Clitheroe)
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek


Langford-Holt, Sir John
Percival, Ian
Wall, Patrick


Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Pike, Miss Mervyn
Walters, Dennis


Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Pink, R. Bonner
Ward, Dame Irene


Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch
Weatherill, Bernard


Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Webster, David


Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Selwyn (Wirral)
Prior, J. M. L.
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Loveys, W. H.
Pym, Francis
Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William


Lubbock, Eric
Quennell, Miss J. M.
Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)


MacArthur, Ian
Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Maclean, Sir Fitzroy
Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter
Winstanley, Dr. M. P.


McMaster, Stanley
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham)
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David
Woodnutt, Mark


Maddan, Martin
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas
Wright, Esmond


Maginnis, John E.
Robson Brown, Sir William
Wylie, N. R.


Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)
Younger, Hn. George


Marten, Neil
Royle, Anthony



Maude, Angus
Russell, Sir Ronald
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald
Scott, Nicholas
Mr. R. W. Elliott and


Mawby, Ray
Sharpies, Richard
Mr. Jasper More.


Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)





NOES


Albu, Austen
Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Ford, Ben


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Forrester, John


Alldritt, Walter
Crawshaw, Richard
Fowler, Gerry


Allen, Scholefield
Cronin, John
Freeson, Reginald


Anderson, Donald
Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard
Gardner, Tony


Armstrong, Ernest
Cullen, Mrs. Alice
Carrett, W. E.


Ashley, Jack
Dalyell, Tam
Ginsburg, David


Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)
Darling, Rt. Hn. George
Gourlay, Harry


Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice
Davidson, Arthur (Accrington)
Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford)
Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Anthony


Barnes, Michael
Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Gregory, Arnold


Baxter, William
Davies, Ednyfed Hudson (Conway)
Grey, Charles (Durham)


Beaney, Alan
Davies, Harold (Leek)
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)


Bellenger, Rt. Hn. F. J.
Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Llanelly)


Bence, Cyril
Davies, Robert (Cambridge)
Griffiths, Will (Exchange)


Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood
Delargy, Hugh
Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.


Bennett, James (G'gow, Bridgeton)
Dell, Edmund
Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)


Bidwell, Sydney
Dempsey, James
Hamilton, James (Bothwell)


Binns, John
Dewar, Donald
Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)


Bishop, E. S.
Diamond, Rt. Hn. John
Hamling, William


Blackburn, F.
Dickens, James
Hannan, William


Booth, Albert
Dobson, Ray
Harper, Joseph


Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur
Doig, Peter
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)


Bowden, Rt. Hn. Herbert
Driberg, Tom
Hart, Mrs. Judith


Braddock, Mrs. E, M.
Dunnett, Jack
Haseldine, Norman


Bray, Dr. Jeremy
Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth (Exeter)
Hattersley, Roy


Brooks, Edwin
Edwards, Rt. Hn. Ness (Caerphilly)
Hazell, Bert


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Edwards, William (Merioneth)
Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret


Brown, Rt. Hn. George (Belper)
English, Michael
Hobden, Dennis (Brighton, K'town)


Brown, Bob (N 'tle-upon-Tyne, W.)
Ennals, David
Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas


Buchan, Norman
Ensor, David
Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough)


Buchanan, Richard (C'gow, Sp'burn)
Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)
Howarth, Robert (Bolton, E.)


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Evans, loan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley)
Howie, W.


Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James
Faulds, Andrew
Hoy, James


Carmichael, Nell
Fernyhough, E.
Huckfield, L.


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Finch, Harold
Hughes, Rt. Hn. Ciedwyn (Anglesey)


Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)


Chapman, Donald
Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Hughes, Roy (Newport)


Coe, Denis
Floud, Bernard
Hynd, John


Coleman, Donald
Foley, Maurice
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)


Conlan, Bernard
Foot, Sir Dingle (Ipswich)
Jackson, Colin (B'h'se &amp; Spenb'gh)







Jackson, Peter M, (High Peak)
Mikardo, Ian
Ryan, John


Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Millan, Bruce
Sheldon, Robert


Jeger, Mrs. Lena (H'b'n &amp; St.P'cras, S.)
Milne, Edward (Blyth)
Shinwell, Rt. Hn. E.


Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Molloy, William
Shore, Peter (Stepney)


Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'He-u-Tyne)


Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Morris, Charles R. (Openahaw)
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)


Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)
Morris, John (Aberavon)
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)


Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Moyle, Roland
Skeffington, Arthur


Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda West)
Murray, Albert
Small, William


Kelley, Richard
Newens, Stan
Snow, Julian


Kenyon, Clifford
Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)
Spriggs, Leslie


Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter &amp; Chatham)
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby, S.)
Steele, Thomas (Dunbartonshire, W.)


Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)
Norwood, Christopher
Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael


Kerr, Russell (Fettham)
Oakes, Gordon
Stonehouse, John


Lawson, George
Ogden, Eric
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.


Leadbitter, Ted
O'Malley, Brian
Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley


Ledger, Ron
Oram, Albert E.
Swain, Thomas


Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick (Newton)
Orme, Stanley
Swingler, Stephen


Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick (Newton)
Oswald, Thomas
Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)


Lestor, Miss Joan
Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, Stn)
Thornton, Ernest


Lever, Harold (Cheetham)
Owen, Will (Morpeth)
Tinn, James


Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)
Padley, Walter
Tomney, Frank


Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Page, Derek (King's Lynn)
Urwin, T. W.


Lipton, Marcus
Paget, R. T.
Varley, Eric G.


Lomas, Kenneth
Palmer, Arthur
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Loughlin, Charles
Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles
Walden, Brian (All Saints)


Luard, Evan
Park, Trevor
Wallace, George


Lyon, Alexander W. (York)
Parker, John (Dagenham)
Watkins, David (Consett)


Lyons, Edward (Bradford. E.)
Parkyn, Brian (Bedford)
Watkins, Tudor (Brecon &amp; Radnor)


Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Pavitt, Laurence
Wellbeloved, James


MacColl, James
Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)
Whitaker, Ben


MacDermot, Niall
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred
White, Mrs. Eirene


Macdonald, A. H.
Pentland, Norman
Whitlock, William


McGuire, Michael
Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)
Wigg, Rt. Hn. George


McKay, Mrs. Margaret
Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)
Wilkins, W. A.


Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)
Prentice, Rt. Hn. R. E.
Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick


Mackie, John
Price, Christopher (Perry Barr)
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornchurch)


Mackintosh, John P.
Price, Thomas (Westhoughton)
Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)


Maclennan, Robert
Probert, Arthur
Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)


MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Islet)
Pursey, Cmdr. Harry
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


MacPherson, Malcolm
Rankin, John
Willis, George (Edinburgh, E.)


Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)
Rees, Merlyn
Winnick, David


Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Reynolds, G. W,
Winterbottom, R. E.


Mallalieu, J.P.W.(Huddersfield, E.)
Rhodes, Geoffrey
Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.


Manuel, Archie
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Woof, Robert


Mapp, Charles
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Wyatt, Woodrow


Marquand, David
Robinson, Rt. Hn. Kenneth(St.P'c'as)
Yates, Victor


Mason, Roy
Robinson, W. O. J. (Walth'stow, E.)



Maxwell, Robert
Roebuck, Roy
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Mayhew, Christopher
Rose, Paul
Mr. Neil McBride and


Mellish, Robert
Ross, Rt. Hn. William
Mr. Harold Walker.


Mendelson, J. J.
Rowland, Christopher (Meriden)

Question put, That the proposed words be there added:—

The House divided: Ayes 274, Noes 225.

Division No. 315.]
AYES
[9.43 p.m.


Albu, Austen
Brooks, Edwin
Davies, Ednyfed Hudson (Conway)


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Davies, Harold (Leek)


Alldritt, Walter
Brown, Rt. Hn. George (Belper)
Davies, Ifor (Gower)


Allen, Scholefield
Brown, Bob (N'c' tle-upon-Tyne, W.)
Davies, Robert (Cambridge)


Anderson, Donald
Buchan, Norman
Delargy, Hugh


Armstrong, Ernest
Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)
Dell, Edmund


Ashley, Jack
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Dempsey, James


Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)
Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James
Dewar, Donald


Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice
Carmichael, Neil
Diamond, Rt. Hn. John


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Carter-Jones, Lewis
Dickens, James


Barnes, Michael
Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Dobson, Ray


Baxter, William
Chapman, Donald
Doig, Peter


Beaney, Alan
Coe, Denis
Driberg, Tom


Bellenger, Rt. Hn. F. J.
Coleman, Donald
Dunnett, Jack


Bence, Cyril
Conlan, Bernard
Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth (Exeter)


Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood
Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Edwards, Rt. Hn. Ness (Caerphilly)


Bennett, James (G'gow, Bridgeton)
Craddock, Ceorge (Bradford, S.)
Edwards, William (Merioneth)


Bidwell, Sydney
Crawshaw, Richard
English, Michael


Binns, John
Cronin, John
Ennals, David


Bishop, E. S.
Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard
Ensor, David


Blackburn, F.
Cullen, Mrs. Alice
Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)


Booth, Albert
Dalyell, Tam
Evans, loan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley)


Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur
Darling, Rt. Hn. George
Faulds, Andrew


Bowden, Rt. Hn. Herbert
Davidson, Arthur (Accrington)
Fernyhough, E.


Braddock, Mrs. E. M.
Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford)
Finch, Harold


Bray, Dr. Jeremy
Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)




Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Price, Christopher (Perry Barr)


Floud, Bernard
Lipton, Marcus
Price, Thomas (Westhoughton)


Foley, Maurice
Lomas, Kenneth
Probert, Arthur


Foot, Sir Dingle (Ipswich)
Loughlin, Charles
Pursey, Cmdr. Harry


Ford, Ben
Luard, Evan
Rankin, John


Forrester, John
Lyon, Alexander W. (York)
Rees, Merlyn


Fowler, Gerry
Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)
Reynolds, G. W.


Freeson, Reginald
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Rhodes, Geoffrey


Gardner, Tony
MacColl, James
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Garrett, W. E.
MacDermot, Niall
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)


Ginsburg, David
Macdonald, A. H.
Robinson, Rt. Hn. Kenneth (St.P'c'as)


Gourlay, Harry
McGuire, Michael
Robinson, W. O. J. (Walth'stow, E.)


Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)
McKay, Mrs. Margaret
Roebuck, Roy


Greenwood, Fit. Hn. Anthony
Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)
Rose, Paul


Gregory, Arnold
Mackie, John
Ross, Rt. Hn. William


Grey, Charles (Durham)
Mackintosh, John P.
Rowland, Christopher (Meriden)


Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Maclennan, Robert
Ryan, John


Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Llanelly)
MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)
Sheldon, Robert


Griffiths, Will (Exchange)
MacPherson, Malcolm
Shinwell, Rt. Hn. E.


Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.
Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)
Shore, Peter (Stepney)


Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)


Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Mallalieu, J.P.W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)


Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)
Manuel, Archie
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)


Hamling, William
Mapp, Charles
Skeffington, Arthur


Hannan, William
Marquand, David
Small, William


Harper, Joseph
Mason, Roy
Snow, Julian


Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Maxwell, Robert
Spriggs, Leslie


Hart, Mrs. Judith
Mayhew, Christopher
Steele, Thomas (Dunbartonshire, W.)


Haseldine, Norman
Mellish, Robert
Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael


Hattersley, Roy
Mendelson, J. J.
Stonehouse, John


Hazell, Bert
Mikardo, Ian
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.


Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret
Millan, Bruce
Summerskill, Hn. Dr. Shirley


Hobden, Dennis (Brighton, K'town)




Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Milne, Edward (Blyth)
Swain, Thomas


Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough)
Molloy, William
Swingler, Stephen


Howarth, Robert (Bolton, E.)
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)


Howie, W.
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Thornton, Ernest


Hoy, James
Morris, John (Aberavon)
Tinn, James


Huckfield, L.
Moyle, Roland
Tomney, Frank


Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Murray, Albert
Urwin, T. W.


Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Newens, Stan
Varley, Eric G.


Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Hynd, John
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby, S.)
Walden, Brian (All Saints)


Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)
Norwood, Christopher
Wallace, George


Jackson, Colin (B'h'se &amp; Spenb'gh)
Oakes, Gordon
Watkins, David (Consett)


Jackson, Peter M. (High Peak)
Ogden, Eric
Watkins, Tudor (Brecon &amp; Radnor)


Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas
O'Malley, Brian
Wellbeloved, James


Jeger, Mrs. Lena (H'b'n &amp; St. P'cras, S.)
Oram, Albert E.
Whitaker, Ben


Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Orme, Stanley
White, Mrs. Eirene


Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Oswald, Thomas
Whitlock, William


Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn)
Wigg, Rt. Hn. George


Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)
Owen, Will (Morpeth)
Wilkins, W. A.


Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Padley, Walter
Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick


Jones, T. A. (Rhondda, W.)
Page, Derek (King's Lynn)
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornchurch)


Kelley, Richard
Paget, R. T.
Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)


Kenyon, Clifford
Palmer, Arthur
Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)


Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter &amp; Chatham)
Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)
Park, Trevor
Willis, George (Edinburgh, E.)


Kerr, Russell (Feltham)
Parker, John (Dagenham)
Winnick, David


Lawson, George
Parkyn, Brian (Bedford)
Winterbottom, R. E.


Leadbitter, Ted
Pavitt, Laurence
Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.


Ledger, Ron
Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)
Woof, Robert


Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick (Newton)
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred
Wyatt, Woodrow


Lee, John (Reading)
Pentland, Norman
Yates, Victor


Lestor, Miss Joan
Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)



Lever, Harold (Cheetham)
Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)
Prentice, Rt. Hn. R. E.
Mr. Neil McBride and




Mr. Harold Walker.




NOES


Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)
Biffen, John
Bryan, Paul


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Biggs-Davison, John
Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N &amp; M)


Astor, John
Birch, Rt. Hn. Nigel
Buck, Antony (Colchester)


Atkins, Humphrey (M't'n &amp; M'd'n)
Black, Sir Cyril
Bullus, Sir Eric


Awdry, Daniel
Blaker, Peter
Burden, F. A.


Baker, W. H. K.
Body, Richard
Campbell, Gordon


Balniel, Lord
Bossom, Sir Clive
Carlisle, Mark


Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John
Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert


Batsford, Brian
Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward
Cary, Sir Robert


Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton
Braine, Bernard
Channon, H. P. G.


Bell, Ronald
Brinton, Sir Tatton
Chichester-Clark, R.


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)
Bromley-Davenport, Lt. -Col. Sir Walter
Clark, Henry


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos. &amp; Fhm)
Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)
Glegg, Walter


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Cooke, Robert







Cooper-Key, Sir Neill
Hornby, Richard
Pike, Miss Mervyn


Cordle, John
Howell, David (Guildford)
Pink, R. Bonner


Corfield, F. V.
Hunt, John
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch


Costain, A. P.
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Price, David (Eastleigh)


Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spolthorne)
Iremonger, T. L.
Prior, J. M. L.


Crawley, Aidan
Irvine, Bryant Codman (Rye)
Pym, Francis


Crouch, David
Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Quennell, Miss J. M.


Crowder, F. P.
Jennings, J. C. (Burton)
Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James


Cunningham, Sir Knox
Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)
Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter


Currie, G. B. H.
Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Dalkeith, Earl of
Jopling, Michael
Ronton, Rt. Hn. Sir David


Dance, James
Kaberry, Sir Donald
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas


Dean, Paul (Somerset, N.)
Kerby, Capt. Henry
Ridsdale, Julian


Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F, (Ashford)
Kimball, Marcus
Robson Brown, Sir William


Doughty, Charles
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Drayson, G. B.
Kitson, Timothy
Royle, Anthony


du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward
Knight, Mrs. Jill
Russell, Sir Ronald


Eden, Sir John
Lambton, Viscount
Scott, Nicholas


Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)
Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Sharpies, Richard


Errington, Sir Erie
Langford-Holt, Sir John
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)


Eyre, Reginald
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Sinclair, Sir George


Fisher, Nigel
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Smith, John


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)
Stainton, Keith


Forrest, George
Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)
Steel, David (Roxburgh)


Fortescue, Tim
Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Selwyn (Wirral)
Stodart, Anthony


Foster, Sir John




Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford &amp; Stone)
Loveys, W. H.
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M. (Ripon)


Galbraith, Hn. T. G.
Lubbock, Eric
Summers, Sir Spencer


Gibson-Watt, David
Mac Arthur, Ian
Tapsell, Peter


Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)
Maclean, Sir Fitzroy
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)


Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)
McMaster, Stanley
Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcart)


Glover, Sir Douglas
Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham)
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


Glyn, Sir Richard
Maddan, Martin
Teeling, Sir William


Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.
Maginnis, John E.
Temple, John M.


Goodhew, Victor
Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest
Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret


Gower, Raymond
Marten, Neil
Tilney, John


Grant, Anthony
Maude, Angus
Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.


Grant-Ferris, R.
Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Gresham Cooke, R.
Mawby, Ray
Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn. Sir John


Grieve, Percy
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)


Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.
Walker, Peter (Worcester)


Gurden, Harold
Mills, Peter (Torrington)
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek


Hall, John (Wycombe)
Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)
Wall, Patrick


Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Miscampbell, Norman
Walters, Dennis


Hamilton, Marquess of (Fermanagh)
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Ward, Dame Irene


Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Monro, Hector
Weatherill, Bernard


Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)
Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)
Webster, David


Harris, Reader (Heston)
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Harrison, Brian (Maldon)
Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles
Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William


Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Munro-Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)


Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere
Murton, Oscar
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro).


Hastings, Stephen
Nabarro, Sir Gerald
Winstanley, Dr. M. P.


Hawkins, Paul
Neave, Airey
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Hay, John
Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard


Heald, Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel
Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael
Woodnutt, Mark


Heseltine, Michael
Nott, John
Wright, Esmond


Higgins, Terence L.
Onslow, Cranley
Wylie, N. R.


Hiley, Joseph
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Younger, Hn. George


Hill, J. E. B.
Osborn, John (Hallam)



Hobson, Rt. Hn. Sir John
Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Hogg, Rt. Hn. Quintin
Page, John (Harrow, W.)
Mr. R. W. Elliott and


Holland, Philip
Pearson, Sir Frank (Clitheroe)
Mr. Jasper More.


Hooson, Emlyn
Percival, Ian

Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.


Resolved,


That this House regrets the failure of the previous Conservative administrations to tackle adequately the deep seated economic problems of the less prosperous regions and welcomes the energetic measures taken by Her Majesty's Government in the past two years to achieve a better economic balance between the regions on a permanent basis.

Orders of the Day — INTERNATIONAL EISTEDDFOD [MONEY]

Queen's Recommendation having been signifled—

Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make further provision for contributions towards the expenses of the International Eisteddfod, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the provisions of that Act in the sums payable by way of rate support grant under the enactments relating to local government in England and Wales.—[Mr. MacDermot.]

Orders of the Day — SEVERNSIDE SCHEME

Motion made and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Harold Walker.]

9.56 p.m.

Mr. S. O. Davies: Some weeks ago we of the old industrial valleys of South Wales were amazed by a statement by the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs that he had appointed a central planning unit to look for a site near the River Severn for a city with a population of 1 million which would cost £1,000 million. That is a modest sum for a city of that size and it is probably an under-statement.
I and many others in South Wales, particularly in the industrial valleys, wonder whether the Government, in considering this vast and uncalled-for expenditure, have given a fleeting thought to the cruel and disastrous effect of such a new Severn-side city on our valley communities. We do not think they have. They have certainly forgotten the exceptionally vast industrial and economic contribution which those valleys have for generations made to the well-being of the country at a great cost of life and limb. It is also obvious that the Government have ignored the outstanding political contribution made to our movement, which brought the Government into being, by the South Wales miners in particular.
I must warn the Government that, although the population of these valleys is being cruelly reduced by unemployment, a strong sense of community still exists there. Their enforced depopula-

tion cannot be forgotten or forgiven. We must remember that the political work is largely done by old-time idealists or inspired by deep-rooted idealism in these communities. Hence the importance to this Government of keeping the South Wales valleys alive in their Socialist faith. I do not apologise for using that expression. I know that it belongs to a terminology which is becoming more and more alien and forgotten. Why talk of spending £1,000 million on piecing together an aggregation of one million people who will be strangers to one another, with no common social or industrial bonds?
We can never forget, too, that from the South Wales coalfield nearly 400,000 of our people were driven by unemployment in the inter-war years, 25,000 of them from my relatively small constituency. Of those people, the middle-aged and the older ones have never forgotten their old homes and associations. Wherever they happen to live now, their sentiment for their old valley communities is as strong as ever and very many of them have never forgiven the circumstances that drove them from their homes. That drift still continues.
I should like to give a few simple figures showing the continued depopulation of our Welsh valleys during the time that the present Government have been in power. I will take the short period of 17 or 18 months between 1964 and the 1966 General Elections. These figures obviously apply to adults aged 21 or over. In that short period, the electorate in the Aberdare constituency was reduced by 901; in Ebbw Vale, it was reduced by 963; in my constituency of Merthyr Tydfil, by 1,068; in the Abertillery constituency by 1,108; and in the Rhondda constituencies by nearly 2,000. These figures, I repeat, relate to people over the age of 21.
I do not wish to detain the House very long, but this is a subject on which, had we time, my hon. Friends from South Wales would like to address the House. I have no hesitation in asking the members of the Government to read the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda, West (Mr. Alec Jones), delivered only a matter of days ago. Never was a more sincere and illuminating maiden speech delivered in the House of Commons. I am certain


that if that speech were read by members of the Government it might prick their consciences a little and bring home to them the distance which they have travelled away from the basic principles which brought this movement into being and sustained it through the long years of Toryism.
My hon. Friend's maiden speech gave all the answers to the reckless and irresponsible threat of spending £1,000 million. Not only did I hear my hon. Friend deliver his maiden speech, but I have read and re-read it, and so have a considerable number of my constituents.
If I may say so, in all humility, I have lived in this movement long enough to make it impossible for me to shed the conviction that the death of these great history valley communities will be the end of all justification for the existence of this Government. Severnside will contribute very largely indeed to that wicked end.

10.5 p.m.

Mr. James Griffiths: My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. S. O. Davies) has raised a very important subject, but he has spoken, if I may say so, as though he believes, or has been led to believe, that a decision had been arrived at by the Government to establish a city on Severnside at very great cost for an immense population. I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Wales will make it quite clear that no such decision has been taken. I understand that the various regional authorities concerned have arranged to make a study of Severnside.
It is certain that, with the opening of the bridge, development will take place on Severnside. What is very important is that we should prevent from happening now what has happened in the past following some such project—industrial development sprawling everywhere. I therefore hope that there will be co-operation on all sides to see that such development is ordered and controlled, and not allowed to grow into an ugly sprawl. We have had enough of that. We are now paying a very heavy price of the lack of real planning and design in guiding and harnessing our economic and industrial growth.
Some time this year we are due to have a plan for Wales. I hope that no decision will be made about Severnside until we have that plan. We are pledged as a Government—and I gave an undertaking as Secretary of State for Wales, and my successor has given the same undertaking—that there will be a plan indicating the details of what is to be done in terms of future industrial development in Wales. We should see that plan before a decision is made.
I hope that in that plan very full consideration will be given to the future of the valleys. I entirely agree that if our valley communities are lost something very precious will have been lost in the life not only of our movement, but of the country. I hope that my hon. Friend will reassure us that no decision has been made, that the plan for Wales will be published before any decision is arrived at, and that before long the House will have an opportunity to discuss all these matters which are connected with industrial development in Wales.

10.10 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Ifor Davies): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. S. O. Davies) for having raised this extremely important matter tonight. I appreciate, also, the intervention of my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. James Griffiths). I shall deal with the points he made.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on the very sincere, persuasive and, as usual, powerful way in which he presented his case. I fully share his concern about the unemployment situation in the industrial valleys of South Wales, including his constituency. No one shares that more than I do. I can speak with some experience of my constituency in this matter. This situation is bound up with the changing face of Welsh industry. On the one hand, there is a decline in basic heavy industries—notably coal—and, on the other, tremendous efforts are being made, and will continue to be made, to introduce new industry, and not without success.
The problems of the regions have already been debated at length in the House today. I assure my hon. Friend and all my hon. Friends that the Secretary of State is determined to ensure that


the special problems of industrial Wales shall be dealt with as urgently and effectively as possible. The main point of my hon. Friend's speech was that the approval of a Severnside scheme is completely inconsistent with the need to solve the problems of industrial South Wales. That fear has been expressed in more than one quarter. I hope tonight to be able to convince my hon. Friend that the fear, although perfectly understandable, is not well-founded. I see from the Order Paper that my hon. Friend refers to
the Minister's approval to the Severnside scheme".
The fact is that there has been no such approval. What is in hand is a study of the Severnside area and I shall explain why the study is taking place.
It has been estimated that by about the end of the century the population of this country will increase by about 20 million. Inevitably, such an estimate is subject to a considerable margin of error, but this is the best estimate that can be made at present and there is no reason to suppose that it is far off the mark. It represents a percentage increase which is probably larger than anything in our history over a similar period of time.
Although the bulk of the increase is not likely to take place until after 1980 it is not too soon to consider where the increase in population can best be located. Clearly, the new towns can make a contribution to the solution of the problem. Then again the massive redevelopment of 19th century housing areas—perhaps at higher densities—will provide a part of the answer. Nor can we overlook the contribution made by the steady expansion of existing towns—although on this I should point out that there are limits beyond which expansion can be counter-productive in terms of central area and traffic congestion. But even after making generous allowances for solutions along these lines we are likely to be faced with a considerable gap.
The real need, therefore, is to determine where to build to accommodate the "increased" population and to build on a large scale. It is historically true that urban development in this country has taken place in the context of the prob-

lems of particular towns or, more rarely, particular regions. This is the history of our new towns. More often than not development has been located where there happens to be land available for development. But the cities of the future, and their location, must be looked at in the context of the national problem since they will be expected to make a major contribution to the economic growth and well-being of the country as a whole.
This means that they should be sited and planned in such a way that the economic activities of their citizens determines their most effective location. I do not have to remind my hon. Friend that we already have too many examples in South Wales of urban development having taken place where there happened to be land available for development. Indeed, it is true to say that one of our greatest problems in South Wales at present, and one which will continue to face us for some years, is how best to deal with this unhappy legacy of the last century—the residential development huddled around the colliery or the houses crowded together in the shadow of the steel works. There are many examples in my hon. Friend's constituency and, indeed, in mine.
It is also important to determine the location of the new and large scale development which will be needed with due regard to other large investments. For instance, to ignore the planned investment in motorways and to disregard the advantages of estuarial locations would be the antithesis of good long-term and positive planning.
It was against this background that my hon. Friend the then First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs announced in the House on 7th July, 1966, that the Government were putting in hand a detailed study of the Humberside area to consider whether there was a site or sites in that area capable of accommodating on a large scale part of the expected population increase. My right hon. Friend went on to say that Severnside and the Dundee area were other areas already identified for early study.
The time has now come to start the Severnside study, with which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales is closely identified, since part of


the study area is within my right hon. Friend's territorial responsibilities. That is why I am speaking in reply to my hon. Friend tonight.
The study will be under the overall control of the Central Unit for Environmental Planning, which is part of the Department of Economic Affairs. But all the other Departments which have an interest in this work will be represented on the unit or closely associated with it. The Welsh Office is one of those Departments.
The study will take the form of an examination of the physical and economic potential of the area with a view to defining the main factors which would operate in favour of or against a big inflow of population. It will be in sufficient depth to enable views to be formed on the location, scale, cost and phasing of possible developments, the sort of industries that might be attracted to the area, and, perhaps most important of all in the context of my hon. Friend's concern, what would be the effects on South Wales and other parts of the country of a substantial growth of population on Severnside.

Mr. James Griffiths: Will the Welsh Economic Council be brought fully into this?

Mr. Davies: Yes. I will come to that in a moment.
One vital aspect of the study will be a survey to collect information from industrial firms in the study area about their trade and employment, their prospects for the future, and the advantages and disadvantages of the area for different kinds of industries.
There will also be a physical planning unit to investigate the physical possibilities and limitations of the study area for large scale development. The physical planning unit will be staffed by officers from Central Government Departments, including the Welsh Office, and from the local planning authorities which have responsibilities in the study area.
I must emphasise that the local authority officials working in the unit will not be there, as representatives or delegates of their particular authorities. They will be full members of the unit contributing to the work of the unit their considerable

local knowledge in the field of physical planning.
It is never easy to settle to everyone's satisfaction the limits—the geographical limits—of a study of this kind. We have already been told that the part of Wales which is included in the study area is too extensive. We have also been told that it is not extensive enough. Indeed, we have heard some comments to the effect that the boundary chosen is just right.
The Welsh part of the study area covers a substantial part of Monmouthshire. Newport is included. So are Cwmbran, Caerleon, Pontypool, Usk and Chepstow urban districts, Monmouth and Abergavenny boroughs and all the rural districts in the county. One of these rural districts is Magor and St. Mellons, which is really in two parts, one either side of Newport. For statistical reasons, it would be inappropriate to include only a part of a county district, and in any case it is right that a substantial part of the land between Newport and Cardiff should be studied.
Cardiff itself has been excluded. I know that this has caused concern, particularly to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. E. Rowlands). This does not mean, however, that the interests of Cardiff are being prejudiced. Far from it. Cardiff plays an important rôle as the capital city of Wales, as an administrative, educational and commercial centre, and its functions in these respects are likely to continue to grow. The study will, therefore, take careful account of the position of Cardiff in relation to Severnside generally and of the effects upon Cardiff of any possible large-scale development of Severnside.
I come now to the question raised by my right hon. Friend. When the study is completed, all bodies in the area, including the Welsh Economic Council, will have an opportunity to consider and to comment on it before any basic Government policy is settled.
I hope that that meets the point which he raised. I trust that my hon. Friend will appreciate, also, that the study is intended to seek a solution to a national problem and has little connection with the problems facing industrial South Wales today. It is important to draw a clear distinction between this national problem of where to accommodate the massive increase in population and the


local and regional problem of unemployment and the changing structure of the South Wales economy. In practice, the distinction can be most clearly illustrated, perhaps, in terms of the time scales involved. The local and regional problem faces us now, and it will continue to face us, perhaps, for four or five years.
I emphasise that this is the critical period of transformation for industrial South Wales, especially in the valleys. The Government are not running away from that or from the challenge. I assure my hon. Friend that, in spite of the comments which he made, no Government have ever shown greater concern for the economic and general well-being of the people of Wales.
I do not wish to minimise the gravity of the problems—they will not be easy to solve—but it is wrong to think of them in the context of the Severnside study, because it will almost certainly be many years before any large-scale development of the kind to which I have referred can take place on Severnside. Moreover, that is on the assumption that there can or should be large-scale development on Severnside at all. Only the study can show whether that assumption is realistic.
The time scales and the phasing of the two problems are quite different, and for this reason alone I am sure that my hon. Friend's fears are not well founded. I assure him that any large-scale Severn-side development in the far distant future will not be allowed—I stress this—to deflect us from our current policy for dealing with the urgent problems of the industrial valleys of Wales. The Government are doing everything possible to find a solution to these problems, and the considerable success—I say this with pride—which has already been achieved augurs well for the future.

10.24 p.m.

Mr. Donald Anderson: This is a vital problem, vital for my constituency, too. As my hon. Friends the Under-Secretary of State and the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil (Mr. S. O. Davies) have shown, it is vital for the whole of Wales, and I hope, therefore, that we shall at some time have a debate about it in the Welsh Grand Committee, when fuller expression of our views can be given.
No final decision has been reached on the Severnside project, but the Government are to be commended for their advance preparation in looking at problems which are likely to arise in the future, particularly those resulting from the increase in population. I see no necessary connection between the decline of the industrial valleys and the development of Severnside. Indeed, the contrary may prove to be correct, because Severn-side could act as a pole of attraction over a wider area, just as developments in Swansea now are acting as a central area of activity for a larger part of West Wales.
This problem is being seen in United Kingdom rather than specifically Welsh terms. On the other hand, we in Wales have to ensure that there are no bad consequences, particularly for our own industrial valleys, those valleys where there are such grand communities at present and such a great spirit of life, as I witnessed myself only recently at Rhondda. There will certainly be growth on Severnside—

The Question having been proposed after half-past Nine o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at twenty-five minutes past Ten o'clock.